


Feed Upon the Thistles

by Victorj



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 50,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23529079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victorj/pseuds/Victorj
Summary: AU set in 1920's AmericaIllegal booze is flowing through the country and families fight for control over the bootlegger's market. Atlantic City boss Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish,  self-made man, sits comfortably  in his kingdom of gambling, whores, and the the liquor-filled nights of the shore.  But he soon finds himself in a precarious position between the Lannister's of New York and the Starks of Chicago.Note: This is mostly for fun, a far reach from cannon or cannon timelines.
Relationships: Petyr Baelish & Sansa Stark, Petyr Baelish/Alayne Stone, Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark
Comments: 56
Kudos: 115





	1. Chapter 1

His mother rarely spoke to him when he was a boy, but he remembered one lesson that had been hissed to him through the closet door he had hid behind, sniffling and wiping tears from his ugly, reddened eyes. 

“Either pick the weeds or eat the thistles, Petyr.” 

Take care of problem or lie in the mess you’ve made without complaint. 

Trying to take care of the problem had resulted in a rather large scar and afterward he had quietly and humbly feasted upon the thistles, picking the thorns from his teeth and biding his time until he could finally do something worthwhile. Bit by bit he had planned. He had grown, clawed his way up the ladder and slowly replaced his simple clothes with silk and cashmere, all the while depositing himself within the tightest of circles and shaking hands with the men who could, unlike himself, carry out brazen plans and bold political moves.

All the muck Petyr Baelish had chewed through, all the gambles he had taken, all of the work he had done, only to be rewarded by a dusty cathouse, a couple of casinos, an old hotel, and cellar full of booze. True, his pocket had grown significantly fatter since January 1st, 1920, but he wanted more than this shabby boardwalk palace on the outskirts of New Jersey. He lusted for the glistening lights of Manhattan, he wanted to control the highways of booze traveling through Chicago, and he desired the waters of the Mississippi in Minneapolis. He craved the sun of Los Angeles. Petyr even craved the budding business of the incoming drugs from the dry land of Mexico.

But the Starks, Boltons, Lannisters, even the hearty railroad barrens of the Baratheons clutched what he was after, dangling plans and deals in front of him. True, they were filling his pockets, but they only left an addictive taste on his tongue and Littlefinger was left with the idea of what true power felt like.

However, that was quickly changed by an upset in the north. Baelish had been sitting and drinking bootlegged whiskey when the telegram was passed to him by a simple, pie-faced girl who’s only gift, in his mind, was a redeeming set of tits. Her name was plain, something from Kansas…like Alma or Betty, but Petyr never cared much to find out. Her hand trailed lazily across his shoulders and as he drank the last of his booze remembered the girl’s opium habit.

“Go make money,” Littlefinger hissed in place of thanks, the whisky making him suck against his teeth.

She seemed annoyed but slithered away, her round hips sashaying as she approached a drunk sprawled against one of his cushions. Annoyed, Petyr wanted to reach up and undo the clasp of his impossibly high collar, but he had paid good money for this dark green suit, so he stubbornly wore it as deigned. Baelish liked the clean lines and find tailoring of expensive clothes.

The telegram was short, sweet, and to the point. It was an order. He would be going to New York to be part of a meeting that would, without a doubt, be rather terse. Rumor had traveled to his brackish little hideaway next to the sea that tensions were growing between the Starks of Chicago and the Lannisters of New York. A few of Tywin Lannister’s Canadian shipments had somehow mysteriously gotten lost along the way through Mormont-controlled Duluth and Bolton-controlled Minneapolis and it took a stubborn fool to deny the clear allegiance that the cities on the river and the north shore held with Chicago.

The northern Midwest was a fickle thing, somewhere that Petyr would rather not visit. Much smaller families hid up there in the ice and snow, each of them quite easy to crush on their own, but all of their added worth fed into the Chicago outfit, making the Starks a family that demanded respect. Even from the big, shiny families out east.

Petyr wondered just how heated the great Ned Stark would get when faced with the lavish penthouse that Tywin conducted most of his meetings in. There had been no request for girls to be sent, which meant that the Lannisters weren’t going to be in a hospitable mood. When it was time to impress, Littlefinger was expected to bring his finest women.

Baelish leaned against the bar and snapped his fingers at the kid that he had hired polish glasses while the actual bartender poured the booze.

“Get the car ready.”

The youngster nodded and scuttled away. Petyr stood up and adjusted his silk waistcoat and rotated his shoulder to readjust the way his holster sat beneath his arm, the Colt 1911 nestled heavy and lethal near his armpit. Then, he took his suit jacket off the back of his chair and slid it on. Retrieving his hat from the top of the bar, he made his way out to the parlor. Fedoras and boat hats never impressed him much and he almost always opted for a flat cap. It was simple enough to go about unnoticed and Petyr liked the look.

Two of his bouncers were waiting by the door. “Watch the place,” he said as he buttoned up his suitcoat. “I will be back tomorrow or Thursday. Make sure the girls make money.” Littlefinger expressed the importance of this command with a raise of his eyebrows.

“Yessir.”

Petyr nodded and pushed his way out of his cathouse, smelling the salty air of Jersey’s shore. It was a damp day, chilled, and he was almost relieved to be leaving the gray of the sand in search of the lights of downtown. He hated the shore in the off season. The money from his casinos slowed nearly to a trickle and his girls grew bored with the amount of regulars they had to service. However, the lascivious debauchery of the summer season after dark made it all worthwhile. The help of women and booze kept his pockets satiated throughout the year.

It took a few hours to make it into the city and he had his driver deposit him at the brownstone he kept in the Upper East Side, next to the park. Baelish relished being nestled next to the big money of the city and he routinely reminded himself that he belonged there, surrounded by inheritance and business. By the time he had made his way inside the sky was dark while the city glinted around him, save for the black mass of Central Park that acted as a black hole that gaped in Manhattan’s belly.

The next afternoon he made his way to the Lannister’s building. It was a long walk, but he didn’t mind. He liked the sounds and smells of the city, the baking of bread and rot of the sewer all melded together into the scent of the town, pushing out the brine of the ocean from his lungs.

Baelish pushed through the gilded doors of The Lannister Banking Company and he was pleased that he had worn the shoes that were loud in the heel. As much as the man delighted in being sly and hidden he felt the need to announce himself with the tap of a finely crafted sole. Clicking his way across black and white marble tile he had plenty of time to announce his arrival to the elevator operator. The big man in front of him was obviously a guard that had been put out to greet the attendees of this called upon meeting. The brute nearly half foot taller than Littlefinger but he kept his shoulders squared.

“Top,” he said, letting him know what floor to take him to. “Petyr Baelish.”

Twenty minutes later he was standing in front of a heavy and decadent billiards table, watching as Tywin Lannister leaned over and sized up a shot. He merely glanced up at Littlefinger before turning his attention back to his game.

“The Starks stole my whiskey,” he said before he cracked the cue ball.

There were other men in the room, all of them small time goons that took advantage of the protective shade that the Lannister’s provided against the harsh scrutiny of other gangs and the law. They wore loud suits with spats, tying to be flashy with what spare change Tywin had thrown their way.

Baelish shrugged, waiting for him to continue, which he would no doubt do.

“Those Midwest hicks think that they can steal my shipment, I had two clubs close because they didn’t have enough booze. Lost nearly fifty thousand.”

The sum nearly made Petyr’s mouth water, but he knew that it was mere pennies to what the Lannister’s were worth. It was more about being tricked, taken advantage of. That’s what enraged Tywin, not the money.

However, even in the wake of Tywin’s obvious rage, Petyr was confident that the Starks and their allies wouldn’t be killed when they got to New York, he had too many ears on the inside and the thought of hitting a family head would be far too risky. However, the weight of his pistol beneath his arm was a comforting one. He preferred the shoulder holster, he thought it was easier to hide.

“I just want to see what he manages to come up with. What sort of lie I’ll catch the bastard in.”

The hulking form of Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane, clothed in the most ridiculous double-breasted suit Baelish had ever seen, grunted angrily. “You should’ve let us go out there. We would’ve solved this.”

“While I admire your loyalty,” Tywin drawled, “I am not interested in a war. We’ve only managed to navigate through this law for a little over a year, it’s still too early in the game to be making big moves like hitting Ned Stark.”

Petyr looked at them and glanced at the pool table. Tywin could sink the three ball if he ricocheted the white one off of the top right corner bumpers.

He watched as Tywin missed. He pursed his lips and propped a hand on his hip, leaning against the cue as if it was a large cane. Petyr met his pale eyes when he finally looked at him.

“I needed you here, Littlefinger, because you are my bookkeeper and also my new checkpoint.”

“Checkpoint?”

“Here’s what I want,” Tywin said, setting down his pool cue and adjusting the red satin bowtie that sat at his Adam’ s apple. “You control Jersey, you have one of the last gas stations on the main smuggling route to the city. I’m going to block all other access for my booze and you are going to check the trucks and you are going to make sure that everything is there, understood?”

Baelish blinked, clasped his hands in front of him, and nodded.

“Any shipment that has to go through Chicago will be checked. All of my Canadian whiskey will be checked. All of my shine that’s made down south will be checked. I will not be taken advantage of again.”

“Consider your point taken,” Petyr said. “But with all due respect, how are you going to get them to agree with this plan?”

Tywin smiled, his teeth white and sharp and Littlefinger found himself hating how angular the man’s features were. He wondered what type of pomade he used to slick his blonde hair back. Probably something that smelled like petroleum.

“We have something of his that we are going to keep with you.”

Petyr’s eyebrows furrowed. This whole thing reeked of misinformation and that made him uneasy. He had grown quite accustomed to the predictability of the world and Tywin was dangerously close to surprising him. Tywin snapped at Clegane and motioned for him to go towards the set of double doors that blocked off the rest of the suite from the main living area. The giant stomped off. He came out lugging a small form, downright miniature compared to his massive frame. Very obviously female, her body clothed in a simple cotton dress, very unlike the styles of New York. The dress clashed horribly with the burlap sack that was over her head and she was pushed rather unceremoniously into an armchair.

Tywin neared her and reached out, his spindly fingered hand yanking off the sack like some sort of magician’s reveal.

Baelish saw the hair and he knew. Sansa Stark, her eyes wide and wild, but her mouth pressed shut. No doubt she had been threatened to stay quiet.

Tywin smugly looked at Petyr, very obviously pleased with the plan he had come up with. “She is going with you, to Atlantic City. You are going to keep her there, maybe even with your girls, and that’s where she will stay until the rest of the Starks can learn how to play ball.”

Anger filled him, but not the moral kind.

“This is a death wish.”

“No.” Tywin growled. “This is leverage.”

“They’re going to burn down my city,” Baelish spat, pointing at her. “My boardwalk, my casinos, my bars.”

Everything he had won, every cliff he had managed to scale, every gamble he had made was now being put at risk by someone else, someone who could freely afford to spare another man’s hard work.

Tywin was looking at him angrily, chin dipped, eyebrows furrowed.

“Like it or not, Baelish, you are my best liar. You are also my best bookkeeper, and you are relatively unknown to the Starks. This is why you’re going to take her.” He came around the table. “I will be giving you extra security with plenty of guns. Don’t think that I am a foolish man ignoring the risks.”

Littlefinger looked past Tywin Lannister and could only stare at the terrified form of Sansa Stark. Sunlight for the large windows poured in and there was no denying the Tully blood in her. She reminded him of the lush forests and green moss of her mother’s land.

But she was a time bomb. Ticking and volatile and his empire, no matter how ambitious it was, would surely be destroyed by his cooperation.

“You will be getting ten percent. I am also withholding my cuts from your casinos until this is over,” Tywin said. The plush and decadent room around them had grown quiet, the other men watching and waiting for Petyr’s reaction.

Tywin spoke again, turning to give his back to Littlefinger, almost dismissively. “Take the deal or don't, I don't give a fuck. But if you decline, I will be asking for my loan back. In full and with interest. And you can consider yourself an enemy… just like Chicago.”

Littlefinger’s bright eyes darkened. He wasn’t even given the option to turn down the undeniably huge offer that Tywin provided. His choice was rewarded cooperation or complete ruin. Either way he knew that all of his hard work would be crushed. Whether it was from the Chicago mob or from New York didn’t really seem to matter.

“Ten percent and a withholding of all profits?” Baelish finally asked as he watched Tywin lazily pick up his pool cue and rub the tip with chalk.

“That’s right.”

Petyr glared at the Stark girl. She looked like a wounded little bird, staring down at her feet, a long red braid draped over her shoulder. He found himself suddenly hating the situation she had put him in. For the first time in many years he was feeling like the pawn in someone else’s game and that sickened him. Fury flared in his belly, hot and nauseating like smog and suddenly the suite felt small and suffocating, but he hid it well.

“Deal,” he finally managed to spit out.

Tywin smiled at his response and strode over. Towering above Petyr he stuck out his hand. “You’ll take her back tonight. I want her out of the city by the time the Starks get into town.”

Littlefinger took it and shook, firmly squeezing to show Tywin that he wasn’t agreeing out of his own free will.

“A car will follow with her and your security. You will leave from here. I have the first shipment scheduled for Thursday, you already have the numbers comparison.”

Petyr nodded, still not trusting his emotions to speak. All of Tywin’s orders were cataloged in a leather backed ledger that Petyr kept diligently. All of the numbers referring to booze, gambling, and women were catalogued and cooked to the point where only he could navigate through the numbers and code.

Clegane bent over the girl and murmured something in her ear. Judging by the way she recoiled it was probably something malicious and threatening. Then he grabbed her arm and ushered her out of the room, down to the car no doubt.

Tywin waved him off. “Have a safe trip back to Jersey,” he offered casually and Petyr Baelish’s index finger twitched with the desire to pull the trigger and send a bullet cleanly through Tywin Lannister’s skull.


	2. 2

“What?” Petyr snapped. He took a long drag on his cigar to try and calm his nerves. The tobacco had gone dry and it was providing him little relief, just another disappointment.

When their caravan had arrived back to Atlantic City, Littlefinger had his driver call upon his most trusted repairmen to screw a brand new deadbolt on one of his upstairs rooms while Sansa Stark sat in the separate car alongside the three men that Tywin had gifted for protection. When the lock was installed, Baelish was handed an iron key. Then she was escorted up, the rest of his whores craning their necks at the prospect of a new girl, which wasn’t always good news. Petyr had no doubt he would be hearing complaints, more girls meant more competition.

Once Sansa was locked away Petyr called upon Beverly Martell, a bastard woman that had been his employment the longest and acted as a sort of madam for the weeks he had to be elsewhere. She had come up to his room and he let out his frustrations roughly, coldly, and without emotion. Afterwards, as he was cleaning himself in the washbasin, she helped herself to his decorated box of rolling papers and pungent marijuana, her reward for taking care of the boss.

Who is she?” Bev drawled again, her lids lowered and the reefer reddening her eyes. Petyr watched her painted lips suck on the end of the joint, the lipstick untouched and perfect. There was never kissing.

“She’s a girl.”

“Must be important,” the woman said, getting up and putting her step-in back on and Littlefinger suspected she was pocketing more tips when he looked at the quality of the silk. “If you have her locked away, then she must be important.”

His eyes darkened as he pulled on his trousers, buckling them around his undershirt. “Don’t bother your pretty little head about the girl upstairs.” Whispered by anyone else, the words would’ve sounded sweet, but his voice was warning.

Bev cocked a hip and stood there in front of him, the straps of her chamis loose on her shoulders. She held up the joint, took a long drag, and held the smoke before blowing it out around them. “We both know I’m not pretty.”

Littlefinger shrugged. She was right. She was plain, mousy hair and overly-strong jaw, but she had the personality that men liked. She was a good earner and men flocked to Beverly because she was the exact opposite of their wives…nice and never nagging.

Petyr closed the gap between them and reached out to take the reefer from her. He took a drag and then crushed the rest of the roach between his fingers, ignoring the burn. Bev watched as he let he smoke flow up from his mouth before his sucked it in with his nose and exhaled into her face.

“It would be in your best interest to ignore what’s happening,” he murmured. “Ignore the men here and ignore her. Don’t speak to her if she comes out, don’t even look at her. She’s no one. Am I understood?”

Bev shrugged, unshaken. After years of work she knew she would never be hurt by Petyr Baelish, but she also knew that’s she was a smart girl and listened. Turning away from him she gave herself one more once-over in the mirror before making her way out of his room. Her boss hollered after her.

“And it’s about time you buy your own drugs!”

She slammed the door and Littlefinger was left in his room he thought of Sansa Stark down the hall. In the off season he moved rooms to be on the top floor, the heat of the building rising and keeping the damn chilly air from seeping in. But in the stifling summer he rarely left the downstairs bar. The heat and musk of the brothel would grow to be too much to bare, even for him, the man who felt at home when he was dipped into the sin of it all.

He wanted to go drink, but that meant that he would have to get dressed. He decided to just button his shirt back on and wear the dark green waistcoat from his suit. He tucked in an ascot, too lazy to go through the loops and pageantry of tying his tie back in place. Slinging his shoulder holster back on, he made his way to the door. Before he left he made sure to run his hands back over his hair and he used his thumb and index finger to smooth out his manicured moustache. He rolled his bottom lip in and scraped a little at his beard with his upper teeth.  
It was a lot of work, but Littlefinger found that his women respected him more when he looked neat.

Petyr paused in the hallway. A man was seated outside of the door he had placed Sansa in, one of Tywin’s. He wasn’t a brute, but he wasn’t a waif, a good medium-sized body and a shadowed face. He wore a fedora with a bent brim and a denim shirt tucked into trousers. Baelish gave him a nod.

“What’s your name?”

“Colin Payne,” he said. He sounded Irish. He fished into his pocket and brought out a stainless steel flask. He took a swig and tucked it back without offering any to Baelish. He wouldn’t have obliged had it been offered, but he still didn’t appreciate the lack of offer.

Petyr left him there and went downstairs. He went to the kitchen where the cook was stirring a pot of soup for the girls.

“Bring up a sandwich to the room down the hall from mine. There’s a guy sitting out there, have him bring it inside.”

The cook nodded. “Anything else, boss?”

Petyr looked around. “Milk. Bring her some milk.”

“Got it.”

Then he made his way to the bar and sat at his designated end, drinking and watching. He saw lawyers come in, cops, husbands and fathers. Even the mayor’s nephew stumbled in with a chest that was puffed out for show and he was talking too loud to his group of annoying boys, clearly underage but they had the cash to make Petyr not care.

The whiskey was going down easy that night and he couldn’t help but be sullen as his face started to grow warm from the alcohol. He reclined in his seat, turning and leaning his back against the bar, his arm propped up on the back of his chair. Watching his girls work, he eventually started to get drunk and a little proud. Out of all of his businesses, this little harem had been his favorite. It had been an old and dusty bed and breakfast. The old, decrepit owners were one foot in the grave and they were excited at the cash he had offered them, quickly leaving the boardwalk to find a little seaside cottage to eventually die in. It took repairs and talent seeking, but eventually he had opened the doors and business grew. After January 1st of 1920, business boomed. Word traveled quickly that men could get their rocks off and then get drunk in the same place and Baelish had no problem keeping Johns in his rooms. Prohibition would come and go but men would always pay for pussy. It had been the oldest trick in the book and he was known to have a good inventory.

And now it was at risk.

Taking out his pocket watch he realized that he was on his way well into the morning and he eventually decided to go upstairs with a throbbing head. The stairs were a little bit tricky to navigate but he managed to make his way up. He had noticed that Colin Payne had left, no doubt to sample one of Littlefinger’s workers, and the iron key felt heavy in his pocket.  
Petyr decided he had a bone to pick with the little redhead in that room.

It took a couple of tries for him to get the key in the lock and he finally managed to turn the deadbolt and get into the room. He noticed a lamp was on and he turned to look at it before closing the door behind him. He didn’t really know what he was expecting, but then he looked at the bed.

Sansa Stark was recoiled from him, scuttled up on the mattress, her back pressing against the metal bed fame and her knees clutched to her chest. Her eye were wide, just like when she was in Tywin’s penthouse and she was looking at Littlefinger like he was the devil himself.

His eyebrows furrowed. “Why do you look so scared?” he asked, moving to the vanity and sitting down on the plush little stool. There was a plate with crumbs on it and an empty glass sitting on table, the inside of the glass frosted with traces of milk. She had ate the food sent up from the kitchen. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Why are you in here?” the girl asked, her first words to him.

“It’s my room,” he replied, the whiskey on his breath but his words sharp.

She looked around, registering what he said, panic rising in her. She scampered off the bed and stood up, back against the wall.

The corners of Littlefinger’s mouth twitched in a smile. Her wide-eyed fear was almost amusing when he compared it to the rest of the somber Starks he had met in the past.  
“You misunderstood me. All of these rooms are mine, they’re my rooms. But I don’t sleep here.”

“I want to go home,” she said instead, not finding any humor in the play on words.

“Believe it or not,” Petyr sighed, sitting up, “I want you to go home too.”

Hope flashed across Sansa’s face, pure and naive like a child believing in Santa Clause. Littlefinger thought it looked rather sad. “Then you can let me go.”

Sometimes innocence was just plain funny. The longer he watched her, the more she looked like a little bird and the more he felt like a cat.

“Don’t be stupid. It’s unattractive.”

He watched her wilt. Weakness was unattractive to him as well.

“I would almost rather watch you come up with some kind of escape than just let you out of here.” He smiled, “That could be fun. It would definitely bide the time.”

The girl was quiet and Petyr watched her, intrigued. Sansa Stark looked so much like her mother that Petyr thought it was a crime that the Tully name had been overshadowed. There was no denying her beauty, had she approached him for a job he would’ve hired her on sight. There was even a chance that he would’ve been her first client. Just to give things a test drive. Through his clouded mind he felt a little bit of hunger towards her but he couldn’t be sure if it was purely for the young girl’s curved waist and long legs, or if he was longing for the memory that she stirred.

“What can you do?” he asked flatly. She was quiet and he watched as she bit her lip, trying to think of anything that would give her some value. Littlefinger played with her. “Everyone’s got a talent here….”

Sansa looked at the bed and back up at him again, fear still in her eyes and he savored her expression when she connected the dots.

“Please don’t make me do…don’t make me do that.”

Littlefinger shrugged. “This ain’t a free ride, baby. You have to earn. If I’m putting my boardwalk at risk to keep you here the least you can do for me is make me a little money. This isn’t a vacation.”

“Oh, I am well aware that this isn’t a vacation,” Sansa snapped, causing him to blink in surprise. He smiled at her little flash of attitude. So she did have something fiery in her.

Which was actually a relief, the last thing he had the patience for was a depressed little maiden weeping away in one of his rooms. The two sized each other up. Sansa didn’t seem regretful of her outburst or frightened of upsetting him. He held up his hands.

“You gotta earn, Sweetling. Everyone has to make money. However you do that is up to you.”

“I can sew,” she said.

Littlefinger stood up and chuckled. “This is a whorehouse. Nobody wears clothes. What are you going find to sew?”

Sansa crossed her arms.

“Tending bar,” Littlefinger said, holding up a finger, “cleaning,” he held up another, “or whoring. Those are your choices.” He waggled his three fingers in her direction before heading towards the door and facing her with his hand on the handle. He gave her a wink. “I’ll let you sleep on it.”


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! if you like it, please let me know what you think! just trying to flesh out the story here before we start with the relationship. Thank you for being patient!

The truck rattled forward on spindly little tires, lurching from the uneven pavement of the road. Petyr Baelish watched from his spot on the porch as it sidled up to one of the two gas pumps before being beckoned to stop by two of his men in raincoats. Both had been provided by the Lannister family, Colin Payne and Thomas Grayjoy. Other nameless men lingered around the gas station, some were Lannister’s and some were Petyr’s, but remembering all of their names was tedious and he wasn’t interested unless they did something wrong. He lit a cigarette underneath the protection of the gas station porch.

Littlefinger watched as Colin spoke to the driver of the truck, waving his arm and telling him to step out. The driver was frisked and then Colin beckoned for Petyr to approach. He was ugly, wearing coveralls and a dirty cap. Petyr stuffed his hands into the pockets of his slicker coat and tried to ignore the raindrops that dripped off of the brim of his hat.

“Where are you headed.”

“New York,” the man said, looking at his shoes.

Petyr tossed his cigarette onto the soaked ground. “What’s your name?”

“Hornwood.”

“Chicago?”

“Originally Saint Paul.”

“Whisky?”

“Beer.”

Littlefinger turned to Colin. “Check the back, count the barrels,” he then turned his attention back at Hornwood. “Who are you going to be reporting to? How much are you supposed to be sending?”

The driver looked at him suspiciously. “I don’t want no trouble. I was just told to drive.”

Baelish scratched at his upper lip with his lower teeth, breathing past his frustration of dealing with this nobody in the cold rain. “Listen,” he said, leaning forward and cocking his head to the men that surrounded him. “I’m not here for trouble. I’m here for quality control.”

Hornwood noticed the guns that were being held around them and licked his lips nervously. “I was given cash for tolls.”

Both of them knew the double meaning behind the word. Tolls. Hornwood had been given cash to buy his way out of robbery or to bribe cops if need be. Petyr grinned and raised his eyebrows, holding out his palm. “Good, you can pay for this inspection.”

The driver stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. He plopped it into Petyr’s hand without counting it. Littlefinger knew he wasn’t lying, he was just a driver. Following orders dumbly to insure a clean transport.

Petyr put the money away, he would count it later. His attention was trained on  
Hornwood’s hands and he wasn’t about to be distracted. Just because Hornwood was a small pawn didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to be a big man with the gun hidden away in his coveralls.

Colin came back around the truck and stood next to Baelish. “Now,” he said to Hornwood, “you still haven’t answered my questions. How much and where is it going?”

“Thirty barrels for Clegane.”

Petyr looked at Payne, who nodded. “Checks out, thirty barrels.

”  
Nodding, he waved a hand and walked away from the truck, listening as Hornwood was barked at to fill up and get the hell out. Littlefinger wasn’t pleased with having to stand out in the rain for some piddly little beer shipment for some lower family’s shabby bars, but with a pocket full of cash it hadn’t been a complete bust. The rest of the men moved away from the truck as the driver pumped gasoline as quickly as he could. Soon he was rattling back down the road and Petyr was stuck waiting for the next one.

Colin came up to him on the porch. “Small shipments so far.”

Littlefinger lit up another smoke. He held the tin out to Payne, who declined, however he did take out a silver flask and take a swig. A small, itching question started to pick at Baelish’s brain, but he kept his mouth shut, sucking on his smoke. He wasn’t about to speculate around one of Lannister’s men. However, he knew of a resource that was waiting back at his brothel, someone that might have an understanding of the way the north worked.

As the rain continued to fall, the men waited to see which would come first, another truck or the morning light.

By the time he had returned back to the brothel, Petyr was chilled, but at least his suit had been protected by the thick rubber raincoat he wore. It was breakfast time and he instructed his men to sit in the bar while the cook fixed up a breakfast of ham, eggs, and black coffee.

“I’ll take mine in the parlor, Sal,” he said as he watched the cook stuff wood into the potbellied stove.

Sal nodded as he grabbed frying pans.

Petyr left the kitchen and went to the stairs. He changed in his room, trousers, suspenders, and a plain shirt. Screw the suit, there wouldn’t be any customers for a while and he was planning on going right back to sleep once he had his breakfast. The iron keys sat on the top of his dresser and he stared at them for a moment before scooping them up. The room down the hall waited for him, locked and secure. He surprised himself by giving a little courtesy knock before unlocking the door.

Sansa was awake and seated with her back to him at the vanity. He looked at her slender form for a second too long and she had caught sight of him in the mirror, staring him down with blue eyes that shone from her porcelain face. She had her hair pulled up, pinned in place like a red sun, her ivory neck willowy and he stared at the little wisps of hair that she couldn’t reach. She was wearing a gray dress with an apron tied around her waist. Exhaustion and nostalgia made his blink lazy and slow and for a moment he thought he was back in the Fingers of Virginia, playing in the creeks with Sansa’s mother.

“Yes?” she asked. She didn’t seem as scared as she had been the night before.

“Come down to the parlor with me. Get some breakfast.” Littlefinger said, stepping aside and holding the door open. He quickly pulled on the sly front he found comfort in.

“Where can I find cleaning supplies?” Sansa asked instead, meeting his eyes in the mirror.

Petyr hid his surprise. She was heading his warning, deciding to earn some money while she was in his care. Care? Who was he kidding. While she was in his keep. Had she called his bluff he would’ve allowed her to just stay in the room, he had no true power over the girl, but her drive was impressive. He noticed a little bit more of her strength than before and he decided there was a little bit more to the girl than he had allowed himself to believe.

“Soap’s downstairs, so is your breakfast.” This was something he would not allow her to say no to. Sansa was wary. “I need to talk to you,” Petyr finally admitted.

She stood up and turned to face him. He hadn’t really taken in how tall she was, even with him, perhaps even a little taller, but he liked that. More of her to look at, he supposed. She was prettier than Bev…prettier than a lot of his girls, and he allowed himself to look at the skin that was visible from the two buttons she had left unfastened at the top of her dress.

Sansa walked past him and he followed her, watching her pause in the hallway as she tried to remember where the stairs were. She had been ushered upstairs rather abruptly upon her arrival.

“To the left,” Petyr instructed, a smile on his lips.

Giving no indication that she heard him, she followed his directions and made her way downstairs. Petyr was interested in the little bit of attitude that she was giving, trying her best to seem strong in her capture, her chin up. He wondered what had happened over the last day and night to push out the whimpering girl he had seen when he had stumbled into her room after too much to drink.

He pointed for her to sit in one of the armchairs of the parlor and he sat across from her, a small coffee table between them. Soon Sal came out with a tray of breakfast and a kettle of coffee. When he realized Petyr wouldn’t be eating alone he quickly grabbed another cup for Sansa. When he went back into the bar and hollered that breakfast was ready, he was answered by a ruckus of chairs scraping against wood floors and the stomping of feet.

“Coffee?” Petyr asked but he poured two cups anyway.

Sansa sipped it black, but she didn’t say thank you.

“Hungry?”

“Toast is fine.”

He handed her some toast and watched as she ate it in a few bites. He had almost expected her to nibble like a mouse.

“I have a question for you,” he asked, drinking from his own cup.

She looked up at him, regarding him with neither curiosity, nor concern.

“Have you been to Saint Paul?”

Sansa looked at her lap and he wondered if she was trying to remember. “Not Saint Paul, but Minneapolis. The cities are very close together.” It was true, they were mockingly called the Twin Cities, both nestled on opposite sides of the great river up in the cold north.

“How long did it take for you to get to New York from Chicago? “

“A long time,” she replied.

Petyr watched her closely. “Did they put you on a train?”

Sansa shook her head. “Automobile.”

Curiosity filled him and he almost asked about how she came about getting herself captured by the Lannisters, but he decided that would be later. He wanted to sort out his thoughts first, while Colin Payne and the rest of Tywin’s men were too busy eating.

“Did your father ever talk about his business?”

“I never asked.”

Petyr threw caution to the wind, the coffee bitter on his tongue after he took a drink. “Why do you think your father would send one measly shipment of beer all the way to New York? By the time it arrived it would’ve skunked.”

Sansa shrugged but she didn’t answer right away. She knew something and was trying very hard to not let Petyr know.

“I got some questions. For instance, tell me why, Sweetling, would he pay for fuel, a driver, and money for bribes for a truck that didn’t even have fifty barrels of beer?” Petyr hissed, leaning across the breakfast table and into her space. She looked down at him with bright eyes and for a moment Littlefinger wondered if she was afraid of him. He was growing mocking and frustrated by the long day and lack of answers.

The tinny sound of the telephone filled the parlor and Petyr wouldn’t drop her gaze while two rings cycled through before he finally stood up and answered the phone.

“Is this Baelish?”

“Who’s asking?” he asked, sipping from the cup he brought with him.

“Ned Stark.”

He held the mouthpiece away from his face, “Shit.” He glared at Sansa Stark and she watched him, her face expressionless but she sipped her coffee.

“I know that whatever you’ve gotten yourself in, it wasn’t your choice.” Chicago boss Ned Stark said. “However, if you so much as harm a hair on my daughter’s head, Atlantic City will be ashes, do you understand me?”

“Very much so.”

“Good. Now,” Ned muttered and his voice crackled through the telephone. He sounded like the nickel shows that lined the boardwalk. “It seems like we are at an interesting point. You’re close to New York, but, if I understand correctly, you hold no loyalty to any of the families, as you yourself are a made man, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s never smart to fuck with a made man.” Petyr didn’t respond to the softball that Ned tossed him. “How many Lannister men did Tywin send with you?”

Craning his neck to the bar, Petyr answered, “About five or six.”

“Paynes? Grayjoys?”

“Both.”

“Here’s the deal. I know that you either have Sansa, or you know who does. If you hand her over I will offer you protection for whatever happens in the future.”

Petyr’s eyebrows furrowed. “While that’s awfully kind of you, Sir,” he said, sipping his cooling coffee, “I’m awfully close to New York, closer than I am to Chicago. A little outside of your reach, if you catch my drift.”

“While that is a valid point, I wouldn’t let that sway your choice, if I were you.”

“Why are you using up resources with small beer shipments to New York?” It was Petyr’s turn to control the conversation. Ned Stark was talking down to him and he didn’t like it. “There’s no way you would’ve even made a profit from the truck that came through last night.”

“That wasn’t mine, that was Saint Paul.”

“But you control Saint Paul.”

There was a pause over the phone.

Petyr puffed his chest. “I won’t give you your daughter, Ned,” he said, glancing over his shoulder and he watched the red-haired girl sip at her coffee. “I have to protect my business, from both you and the Lannister’s. But what I can do is vow protection.”

“You little snake-”

Baelish cut of the Norther Boss without much trouble. “I will offer you her protection for information. I want to know what was in the barrels.”

There was a crackling on the other line and Petyr could hear Ned Stark’s fury through the tininess, hot and sharp. “Beer, you checked it.”

“You were sending skunked beer from the north all the way to New York. I want to know what you were hiding in the barrels,” Petyr pressed, feeling like a terrier on the trail of a rat. “It wouldn’t be much trouble for me to send off your daughter to a different one of Tywin’s allies. Then you wouldn’t have eyes on her.”

There was muffled speaking on the other end of the telephone line, Ned was muttering to someone. Petyr leaned against the wall of the little phone nook and he felt Sansa’s eyes drilling into his spine, curiously. He had tried to keep his voice low, having no desire to let her know who exactly he was talking to…and about what.

Finally Ned spoke. “If I tell you what was in the barrels, then you will accept a visit from me in order to see my daughter. To make sure she is safe.”

His thirst for information clouded his eyes. “Of course.”

“We will meet in Philadelphia, not New York, not Atlantic City, and not Chicago.”

Petyr thought to the shabby yet cunning family that ran Philly, the Frey’s, once endeared to Ned’s wife’s house, the Tully’s. Silently, he weighed his options. “When?”

“Saturday.”

“Fine,” Baelish answered, the plan already forming in his head. He glanced back over his shoulder to Sansa. Her cup was cradled in her hands and she was watching him, her lips pursed like a little rosebud.

Ned sounded even, but not quite pleased. “Good. Now, to get to what was in the barrels. Are you familiar with the Mayo Clinic?”

Petyr shook his head, but remembered he was on the phone. “No.”

“Shaping up to be one of the best hospitals in the country, right out of Rochester Minnesota. Turns out the doctors like to gamble, which is good fucking business for me. After a while I’ve gotten a few doctors on my books with bastard IOU’s, they owe me some money,” Ned Stark said. “To make up for it, they have been handing me morphine off the books. They ship it up to Saint Paul, we wrap it and store it in the barrels. It gets documented in Chicago then sent off to New York. Tywin doesn’t know.”

Well…we’ll see how long that lasts. Petyr thought, checking a back molar with his tongue. The North was taking full advantage of the growing and desperate needs of New York. All of the peoples’ desperation and desire to be numbed were padding the Stark’s pockets like down to a pillow and Petyr could only let his mouth grow dry with the knowledge of a missed opportunity.

All he had was his fucking daughter in his parlor, more of a threat than a power move.

His mind raced with how he could play her to his advantage.

“So,” Ned stark barked, snapping him back to attention. “You have your information. I will be expecting to see you on Saturday, one o’clock, The Bellevue Hotel.”

Petyr sucked at his teeth. “Fine, one o’clock, The Bellevue.”


	4. 4

“Morphine?” Tywin muttered through paper-thin lips, the lazy trails of cigar smoke curling around him and he looked like a lazy dragon lounging in gold. “Who is he sending it to?”

Petyr tried to seem nonchalant, comfortable even though his starched collar and emerald green bowtie were digging into his neck, but he almost liked it that way. The discomfort kept him on his toes and alert. He wore a dark green suit, pinstriped, the trouser legs cuffed over oxfords.

He found himself back in Tywin’s penthouse in New York and he couldn’t help but shift in his seat, displeased with the thought of his red-haired liability in the hands of his men back in Atlantic City. It wasn’t ideal, he had instructed Colin to hustle her back into her room and keep the door shut while he was away. Baelish hadn’t even stopped by his town home on the East Side, he was making the trip the same day.

“The shipment was headed to Clegane.” Tywin’s eyes darkened, becoming even colder, and Petyr noticed the trigger. “But who knows, they could have a man on the inside sneaking it out. That’s probably how Ned knew I had his daughter.”

“We are paying you to know, Baelish. I don’t like men on the inside.” The words were hissed by Cersei Lannister, her hair plaited back elegantly in an old-fashioned show of stubbornness. Petyr had no doubt that, as a woman, she wanted to be sure that men wouldn’t mistake her for innocent weakness in this changing world of flapper dresses and flirty bobs.

“Should I send Jaime to Clegane’s?” she asked, leaning over and touching her father’s arm lightly.

Tywin shook his head after a moment of thought. “No,” he hissed as he leaned back in his armchair and took another pull on the moistening end of the cigar, “we don’t know which Clegane.”

Cersei’s head snapped to Littlefinger. “You didn’t find out if it was the dog or not?”

The burnt brother of the Mountain wasn’t necessarily reliable and, in hindsight, it would’ve been a smart move to clarify if Hornwood had been delivering to Sandor or Gregor.

“No, I didn’t find out which Clegane.”

Her eyes rolled and she all but huffed.

“I would have assumed that you would be happy with this information. I’m giving you a new market, new products. And I’m showing you my loyalty by coming here and telling you all of this. Fuck, I’m even telling you where and when I’ll be meeting him!” The smaller man couldn’t help but bristle in the presence of Tywin’s daughter. Looking at her made his stomach churn with bile. There was a sinister lethality to her eyes and her smile never reached them. Insincere and plotting.

“I’m not unhappy with the information, Baelish,” Tywin sighed and ground the last of his cigar into the ashtray. “But I am unhappy with this continued disrespect from Chicago. And now he’s got his little fucking sneaks in my city, pumping out drugs. I know he has his hands in my numbers and in my clubs. Stark has his own territory, and a busy one at that, and I am in no mood to nurture a greedy enemy.”

Cersei relished in witnessing her father’s growing fury. “What should we do?”

“You are going to meet Jaime in Philly,” he instructed, pointing to Littlefinger. “Bring my men as well. Get Ned outside. I don’t care how. They will take care of the rest.” Tywin gave a nod to Cersei. They were finished. She rose, her simple dress was flowing and light, cuffed at her wrists with pearl buttons down the front.

Littlefinger stayed seated, defiant. “Sir, if I may, you are talking about possibly starting a war. Over some drugs.”

Petyr thought of Ned’s hungry son. There had been plenty of rumors about Rob Stark and his reputation as a man just as strong and street-smart as his father. But Rob was young, and young men with power were volatile and dangerous. There would be retaliation, revenge traveling all the way to New York. And, if Ned was pinched, things would not look too promising for Atlantic City, which sat like a convenient little prize for Rob to pick off on his way to the Lannister’s. Petyr had nailed his own coffin by speaking to Ned. He would be in alliance with the Lannisters and it would be known that he had hiding away Sansa. If the Lannister’s were successful and the Chicago boss was killed, his boardwalk would surely be nothing but ashes.

Tywin jabbed a finger at Petyr, leaning forward on the table with his other hand and the gold chain of his pocket watch swung. “It’s not about the drugs, Baelish. It’s about boundaries. They are pushing theirs and it’s time for the Midwest bastard to get his pecker slapped. This is fucking New York. I run this town. And besides, you know as well as I that Rob has been waiting for his turn to run things. I’m just speeding up his father’s retirement.”

Petyr was silent. He knew that Tywin was underestimating the loyalty the North held for their family. The Lannisters were blinded by their own power, out of touch with the way the rest of the country operated. That’s what happened when people became so far removed from the rest of the world, sitting in their gold towers, generations away from their ancestors’ ambitious crawl up the ladder.

Cersei’s eyes were narrowed, pinched like she was trying to see if the smudge in front of her was a spider that needed squashing. “There will be no war. This will be a reset, a warning for Chicago to get back in line. You should really be thanking us. Little birdy mentioned that you used to have a thing for that Miss Catelyn. We’re doing the home-breaking for you.”

Her words felt like splinters under his nails and his jaws were clenched when he stood. But he stayed silent. He had a long car ride to curse Cersei Lannister into the ground.

Back in Atlantic City, Petyr sat at his bar, drinking and thinking, while his girls sashayed around, whispering into men’s ears and slipping their delicate hands into their pockets. The room smelled like reefer and sweat, normally something that was as comforting to Littlefinger as the smell of apple pie, but it churned his stomach with worry. Would his bar be here in another month? Or would it be a pile of ash?

He rapped on the worn wood surface with his knuckle and the tender poured him another. Snapping it back, Petyr relished in the burn before he chastised himself. He should be thinking of a plan, but instead all he wanted to do was get drunk. Every time he started to scheme his mind would wander into self-pity. He had worked so hard. Made his rags into riches. And now Petyr was being used like a pawn while the big boys plotted the rest of their games around him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as a man hefted himself up into the stool down at the other end of the bar. Colin gave him a nod and ordered a beer.

“What are you doing?” Petyr asked.

Payne wiped the froth from his upper lip. “Having a drink?”

“Shouldn’t you be upstairs?”

He shrugged. “You’re back. She said she had stuff to clean. So I brought her down here. Figured with the bouncer at the door she wouldn’t be able to leave.”

“Are you kidding me?” Petyr snapped, springing up from his seat. “Ever heard of windows?!”

The feet of the barstool groaned sharply against the worn wood floor as Petyr pushed it violently out of the way in order to quickly march out of the main sitting area. A drunk slumped over the shoulder of a pretty-faced girl much too small for him stumbled in their way down the stairs and he had to dance away before the weight of her customer brought the both of them to the floor. Petyr’s eyes darted around the large entryway despite the ruckus, looking for a flash of red hair escaping through an open window.

He startled two dames in the powder room, one sucking down on a thin white joint while the other rubbed lipstick lazily over her lips in the mirror, her eyes heavy and lidded. When they spotted their boss, the girl with the smoke dropped it to the floor and ground it out with her heel, wincing from the burn.

“Get back to work,” he growled.

The smoker pouted. “It’s my break, boss.”

“I don’t have time to negotiate break time,” Petyr said, raising his eyebrows and pointing his chin downwards so he could be sure that the girl met his eye. “But if you can afford a break then you can afford to give me ten bucks by the end of the night.”

Her protests were cut short by the slamming of the door.

Like an agitated dog, Petyr prowled the rest of the lower level, his panic growing with each passing second. She wasn’t in the kitchen, definitely not the bar, not even down in the cellar with the booze.

Chalk ground in his mouth as he clenched and twisted his molars on his way back to the bar. If Payne was stupid enough to still be seated at this bar, drinking his booze, Petyr was going to crack a bottle over his head. But, like a miracle, before he made it into the room, he caught a silhouette, tall and feminine, dart past one of the outer windows.

The ally….

He darted out the door in a sprint, moving faster than he had ever moved in ages. Grabbing the railing of the stoop, Petyr vaulted over the side and landed heavily on the cobblestones, the stairs sitting ignored in his wake. His ankle tinged in pain from his uneven touchdown, but he ignored the ache as he spied Sansa’s red hair in the gloom.

Littlefinger was small, but fast, and he reached her in only a few seconds, grabbing her slender arm and whipping her around to face him.

“I’ll scream!” she hollered, her eyes wide and fearful in the dark.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Baelish huffed, out of breath and furious. His eyes glinted like polished river stones. He repeated himself, giving her a little shake. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing!”  
Sansa looked down and Petyr followed her gaze. There was a basket, wicker, toppled over with cans, papers, napkins, and food scraps scattered across the ground. “I was taking the garbage to the can,” she said, quietly.

Petyr grabbed her face, his fingertips firm on her cheeks as he pulled her to look at him. She stiffened from his touch but he didn’t care. His panic was slowly ebbing away and he felt frayed and raw.

His voice was a very low and quiet growl. A warning as well as an order. “Don’t you ever come outside again.”

Her eyes narrowed and she pulled away. “You told me to work. I’m working.”

“You are going to work where I can see you.”

Sansa stooped to pick up the trash. “I was trying to be as good of a sport as I can be,” she muttered. “Considering how I started to clean up your filthy brothel while I’m a prisoner here.” Her hair hung around her face like a burgundy curtain and Petyr stood above her, trying to not seethe in the wake of her obstinacy. When the garbage was gathered up, she stepped back and looked at him. “Under your supervision, Mr. Baelish, may I deposit this in the dumpster?”

Surprisingly, Petyr smiled. She was fiery today than he had seen her so far. Truthfully, he felt a little foolish, rushing out here, guns a blazing, and here she was following his advice. He thought about how she had been cooped up all day while he traveled to New York, listening to Tywin and his harpy daughter were plan the hit on the girl’s father and the realization of the oncoming storm brewed heavy and black in his gut. He shifted on his feet. At the very least, Sansa had earned herself a drink.

“Come on. Get inside,” Baelish said after he watched her lift the lid and dump her basket. Sansa shut it with a small clatter and walked back over to him, the wicker resting on her hip, and she looked like how her mother looked when Petyr would watch her hang laundry while he hid in the bushes back in Virginia. Thinking about Catelyn always made Petyr feel small and insignificant, and come Saturday he would surely feel even worse. Cersei’s jabs from earlier caused him to bristle.

Sansa pushed past him and he let her pass.

She walked slightly in front of him, her chin tilted up with a small air of boldness and he allowed himself to look at her. She was too beautiful to be a whore, Petyr decided, too elegant. Men would be intimidated by her. They wanted the petite, pie-faced ones with the big lips and doe-eyes. Perhaps he carried a bias for her because of Catelyn, he couldn’t be sure.

Once back inside, she set her basket back in the broom closet and made her way to the stairs.

“Wait,” Petyr called, leaning against the railing and undoing his cufflinks. He stuffed them in his pockets and rolled his sleeves. “I’m sorry for coming after you in the ally. Let me get you a drink.”

Sansa watched him, regarding him. He could see her eyes glance to the bar, the prostitutes and the sad men drooling after them. She seemed unsure, but a little bit curious, and he liked that. Petyr always liked how everyone thought his lifestyle was enticing when they were in the privacy of their own heads. The casinos, the booze, the sex…it interested everyone. Even the nuns in the church at the end of town.

“Alright,” she finally said and cautiously moved back down the steps and he held out his hand, motioning grandly to his small bar. As she made her way there, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers and walked behind her. Colin Payne was gone, probably held up in an upstairs room and straddled by a girl.   
She didn’t wait for him to pull out her barstool for her, she managed on her own. The linen skirt she wore was wide enough for her to cross her legs and she leaned forward, resting her hands on the wood.

“What will you have?” Petyr asked as his bartender tossed the towel over his shoulder and came over.

“Beer,” Sansa said, surprisingly.

Petyr’s mouth curled in a small smile. “A true Midwest girl.”

“It keeps you warm,” she responded, not really wanting to give an explanation. But after the first sip of froth, homesickness filled her and she couldn’t help herself. She looked at the sitting area of the room, watched the women, some bare-chested, others completely nude, and the men paw over them. A strange scene in a strange place. “It makes me think of my father. He always drinks beer,” she said, turning back to look down into her mug of amber liquid.

Baelish held up three fingers and there were three small shot glasses filled with gin in front of him in no time. He shot back the first on, hoping he would be able to glean some courage.

“Listen,” he said as he tossed back the second. “There is something I’m going to tell you.”

“Why?” Sansa asked, taking another drink from her beer and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Why would you tell me anything? I don’t know you.”

“Because you didn’t run.” Petyr said, turning in his seat to look at her fully. “You could’ve, but you didn’t. Which is a curious thing, babe, if I may be honest.” He raised his eyebrows.  
“I would prefer it if you didn’t call me babe.”

Baelish ignored her. “You just said it yourself. You don’t know me. So why didn’t you make a run for it when you had the chance?”

Sansa shrugged. “You were talking to my father yesterday. I know you were. I know you were going to meet him, and he would probably want to see me. If he had your phone number then that means he knows where I am. If I made a run for it then I would be lost.”

“You’re a smart girl,” Petyr hummed.

“I’m not a girl either,” Sansa replied, taking another pull. “So what is it?”

Petyr eyed his final shot but decided against it. That would be for what comes after. “Your father is smuggling morphine across the country. Do you know what that is?”

“The dentist uses it.”

“Well people have realized that it makes them feel very, very good. So they’re using it for recreation, for fun. It’s highly addictive, so when he finds a market it’s a guaranteed money maker.”

Sansa listened while she took another drink. Her beer was nearly finished.

“He was selling in Lannister territory. And they found out about it.”

She set down her glass and stared straight ahead, not looking at Baelish as she started to reach the conclusion on her own.

“There’s a hit ordered for your father.”

Petyr watched her closely, waited for the panic, for the fear.

“Saturday. Jaime Lannister, do you know who that is? Jaime Lannister and a group of his thugs are going to kill your father.” Baelish kept his voice low, leaning forward, his hand on the back of Sansa’s seat. She sat very still and he wondered what she was thinking.

“Why are you telling me this?” she finally asked, turning look at him. Petyr could smell the clean soap that she had washed herself with and her skin was flawless. She looked like the pearl that sat surrounded by the grimy ocean and brine of an oyster.

Petyr’s fingers twitched with the urge to hold her face again like in the ally, pulling her towards him so that he could express just how important this all was. He had come this far without trusting anyone or reaching out for help, but he had become quite sure that this was as far as his independent road could take him.

“Because I don’t know what to do,” Petyr’s voice was barely above a whisper, raspy, “If your father is killed, there will be a war and I will be in the middle of it. I am loyal to no one and that makes for a pretty easy target when the big dogs are fighting. I worked so fucking hard to get to where I am and if this happens, my city will burn and I will most likely be dead.”

“As I got older I always knew that this was a risk, with what he does. But he’s my father, I love my father,” Sansa finished her beer and reached over to take Petyr’s last shot. Snapping it back, her face twisted from the juniper burn and she sat back in the chair, pretending not to feel the shape of Baelish’s hand on the backrest. “But I don’t know what you expect me to do about this.”

Petyr ordered two more shots, one for him and one for Sansa. The gamble that he was making was a hefty one. One that guaranteed safety or death. Trusting this girl, the daughter of a man who had saddled some of the most powerful enemies in the country, was one of the boldest moves he had made in his life.

“I can’t do anything. The Lannister’s will know. But, you can make a phone call.”

Sansa held the full shot glass in her elegant fingers, staring at the booze. “The Lannister’s men are here. They’ll see me on the telephone. I don’t have one in my room.”

Petyr bet it all on black, “I do.”

She looked up at him, understanding what to do, and he hungrily ate up the strength in her eyes before the two of them tossed back the gin at the same time.


	5. 5

He had expected her to cry when she heard her father’s voice, but she hadn’t, and Petyr couldn’t help but wonder why. Perhaps it was just as simple as an underestimation.

“I understand,” he heard the redhead murmur quietly into the mouthpiece, her slender fingers wrapped around the little receiver and holding it up to her ear. Littlefinger leaned up against the back of the spindly wood chair on the other side of his room. He felt the weight of his flask in his pocket, curved to nestle discreetly against his leg, but he opted to ignore it, the shots of gin they had taken just moments before were tiding him over. 

Sansa hung up the phone and paused a moment before turning to face him. Those blue eyes of hers seemed to dance all around the room without landing on him. 

“What’d he say?” Littlefinger asked, his moustache twitching. Typically, pauses and avoidance of eye-contact alerted him to the birth of a lie, and he was in no mood to nurture hers. 

“He said thank you,” Sansa replied, finally looking right at him. Seemed believable enough. 

“And?” 

“And he said he would handle it.” 

“That’s all?” Petyr asked, standing up and taking a step towards her. “That’s all your father had to say to his daughter?” 

Sansa’s flickered to her right. “Yes.” 

Littlefinger’s eyes narrowed and he stepped towards her again, his finger jabbing in her direction. “See, honey, I don’t like it when you do that. I don’t like it when you look somewhere else right before you speak.” 

She faced him straight on, her chin raised up in a show of near defiance, and he could tell that she was taller than him. He liked the look of strength on her, how it lengthened her neck and squared her shoulders, which meant that, unbeknownst to her, her chest pushed out. He pushed the detail out of his head and kept his eyes trained on hers. 

“You heard me the whole time,” Sansa said, cocking her head to the side. Her eyes were narrowed, just like his. “Did I say anything that sounded like a scheme?” 

Littlefinger dropped his hand and pursed his lips. He didn’t give her the pleasure of answering. 

“The reason why I keep looking around is a fairly obvious one,” she said, shifting her feet and glancing past him to the door. “I’m in your room. Alone. I don’t like it. I don’t like any of it. This city, this place, your…whores.” 

Surprisingly, her honesty nibbled at him, not quite strong enough to be a sting of disappointment, but he couldn’t deny feeling….well, something in the wake of her discomfort. 

He turned away from her and went to his dresser, reaching up and removing his tie. “Well then, get out. I’d hate for you to be uncomfortable, sweetling.” The white tall collar was removed with a small snap. He laid it on the surface of the dresser. 

She huffed and brushed past him while he went to work unbuttoning his waistcoat, but the girl didn’t leave right away, she lingered, her hand on the knob of the door. Sansa didn’t look back at him, but stayed facing the wood, her head dipped in thought. “I love my father very much,” Sansa said quietly, “and I know his business is the primary reason why I’m stuck here. But if you do something to screw us over, I will do everything I can to help burn this place to the ground.” She turned to look at him over her shoulder, her blue eyes as cold as ice and for a moment she looked like a wolf glaring down her nose at an enemy. 

Petyr realized that he had potentially made a mistake in thinking that she was nothing more than a timid girl. The venom of Sansa’s threat held him in slack shock, his hands frozen in front of him, his left cufflink only partially removed. Ever so discreetly, the corners of his mouth twitched in appreciation, but he hid it well. She was dangerously close to overstepping and he wondered if she even believed in her own words or if she was trying to scrounge up some sort of bluffed protection. 

“Honey, if you do anything to screw me over, I will put a bullet through your father’s head myself,” Littlefinger replied, removing his other cufflink and setting them down on the surface of the dresser without looking away from her. Holding the girl in his gaze, he then reached up and shrugged out of his shoulder holster, the heavy firearm settling comfortably in his hand. 

“Who’s side are you on, anyway?” she asked and Petyr knew she was trying not to stare at the Colt. 

Petyr shrugged. “Mine, I suppose,” he said, propping his elbow on the dresser and leaning casually. “Which makes me the most honest man in this game.” 

Sansa snorted, her nose crinkling in sarcasm. “You think so?” 

His eyebrows rose and he scraped his bottom lip with his teeth as he savored her quip. “Yeah, Sweetling, I do think so. I’m not swayed by deals or loyalty. The only motivation I have is what I want.” 

The girl turned away from the door and crossed her arms. “And what’s that? What do you want?” 

Her iron gaze reminded him of her mother, but there was no way that he could ignore the differences between them. The proud and reserved Catlyn was present in Sansa’s face and build, but the hard shining eyes and fiery hair was something entirely different. Something stronger. He wondered if she would have rejected a small and pining boy like her mother had. He remembered how she had kissed Stark as he cowered bleeding and small.

The memory swelled and grew bitter, so he had to pretend. Littlefinger shrugged his shoulder, bringing his hand up in a show of feign humility, “What every man wants. Money, recognition, booze,” his act snapped in two and his eyes bored into her, suddenly taking in her curved ivory lines, his snubbed feelings of the past making him greedy. 

“Sex,” Petyr added, his voice a quiet hiss within the room and his eyes glinted. He favored a few lazy steps forward and he watched how wary and intense her eyes were, clear and holding him whole and the man found himself wanting to find out how strong her bluff was. The word hung between them and Petyr savored her reaction. How delicious it would be if he could just see a blush on her face, but it didn’t come.

Instead, Petyr watched her eyes darken as he got too close and she whirled around, throwing open the door. Whatever tension had hung between them quickly disappeared with her hasty retreat and he could smell soap in her wake. He crossed the worn wood floor to watch her go, making sure Sansa closed herself into her own room before he too stepped into the hallway. 

Marching himself down to the end of the room he pounded on the door of the girl he had noticed Payne leer at whenever he was around the girls. “Marie,” he barked, “kick him out. He’s done.” There was a flurry of cursing and muttered pleading on the other side of the door. No doubt Colin Payne was trying to glean just a few more minutes of attention but Petyr’s girls knew that if the boss wanted you to stop, you stopped. No questions asked. The door opened and Marie slipped out, her breasts exposed and her lipstick smeared. Petyr slipped her a five-dollar bill and she scampered back downstairs to make a stop at the powder room before going back into the fray to make more money. 

A visually frustrated Payne was standing next to the bed, fumbling with his trousers and belt. 

“Fucking hell,” he muttered “Now I’m going to be sore.” 

Petyr stepped into the musk of the room and he noticed a subtle sheen of sweat on Payne’s chest before the man pulled on a wifebeater. He felt his own body buzz with the tension that was left over from dealing with Sansa, and he thought for a moment he might be calling to Bev to distract him. He was happy that he wasn’t the only frustrated man in the room. 

Colin shifted in the discomfort of his own trousers, his jaw clenched and his eyes dark. “What was that about?” he groused as he stuffed his hand in his pocket and brought out his cigarette tin and a book of matches. 

“My girls get paid to fuck, you don’t,” Petyr replied casually, watching the other man’s cheeks concave with the aggressive drag of his cigarette. “You’re paid to sit on that chair outside of that door.” 

Payne’s shoulder’s squared, stepping towards Littlefinger and staring him down. Petyr was unconcerned, knowing full well that most of Payne’s frustration was stemming from his inability to get his rocks off. Realistically, they both knew that Tywin wouldn’t be happy knowing that his men were fucking off in a brothel and getting paid for it. 

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he grumbled, pushing past the smaller man and stomping down the hall. 

“I want you in that seat in less than five minutes,” Littlefinger called after him before going back to his own room. He glanced at Sansa’s door and swore he had seen it close just a fraction of an inch. The back of Littlefinger’s neck tingled and he knew he had been watched. It all became too much and he craved a release. 

Petyr then called for Bev to come up to his room and when she dutifully knelt between his legs, he closed his eyes and imagined his hand forcefully tangled in strands of red.


	6. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are picking up! if you guys feel up to it please drop a comment, it's encouraging knowing that people actually like this! stay safe everyone!

Whenever he looked at Jaime Lannister, Littlefinger would always wonder how it was possible to create two insufferable offspring at the same time. There was something dark and twisted in Tywin’s seed and Petyr wondered if he knew that. With one look at Tyrion, the dwarf, old man Tywin no doubt criticized his own cock in the privacy of his head.

Two sinister but pretty-faced twins and a twisted little dwarf. 

Although, Petyr shouldn’t be too harsh, Tywin was one of the only Lannister’s he could actually tolerate. 

Jaime coming along with his own gang of knuckle-draggers put a stick in Petyr’s spokes as far as discretion went. Petyr could only help but glare as he watched the Lannister’s caravan of three model T’s rattle up to his stoop and he watched as Jaime stepped out with spats, pressed trousers, and a satin gold waistcoat, a ruby red tie tucked neatly beneath. He wore a light gambler hat with a matching red ribbon, cardinal feathers sticking from the side. 

He had double underarm holsters on, 1911’s in both. Petyr glanced downwards and saw the very subtle bulge on his ankle. No doubt a Colt 1903 pocket pistol was strapped there, just in case things went south. 

Rather loudly dressed for a hit, but Petyr supposed that was just Jaime’s style

“Littlefinger,” he exclaimed, coming up Petyr’s steps. He didn’t allow him inside, but he watched as Jaime craned his neck to try and catch a glimpse of ass through the windows. “What a fine day for a brawl, eh?” 

Petyr tried not to darken. “I suppose.” “Why the long face?” Jaime said, feigning a pout and reaching out to clap his shoulder. Littlefinger allowed it, but barely. “This ugliness will be over soon and then you can host us with booze and pussy! Seems like a fair trade, yeah?” He reached into his pocked to pull out a silver cigarette tin. 

“Why would I be rewarding you?” Petyr asked, pushing past him and stepping down the stairs. The two bouncers inside already had their orders to hold down the fort. Bev was placed as woman in charge for the night. Littlefinger tried not to think of the very real possibility that he wouldn’t be returning to his harem. 

Jaime blew out a puff of smoke, a Cheshire grin on his pretty face, “Why, now you’ll be lined up for that Cat broad you used to pine so hard for. Speaking of which, where’s here little bitch? Is she anything worth looking at?” 

Indeed, she was…but Jaime didn’t deserve to know that. Instead, Petyr scowled and made his way to the ally where his truck was waiting for him. It was a smaller boxed-back shipping truck, but he made Colin hop in the driver’s seat without question. No one knew that nearly an hour earlier, the small form of Sansa Stark had slipped inside and hid behind two stacked boxes that were filled with straw…and tommy guns. 

But she didn’t know about that part

Jaime finished his cigarette and rubbed it out with his heel. “I want to see them,” and they both knew what he meant. 

Petyr did his best to seem annoyed. “Jaime, they’re nailed shut. Can’t it wait until Philly?” 

Jaime regarded him, sniffing against the briny air of Atlantic City. 

“Look,” Littlefinger bluffed, “I can take them out, find a pry bar, wrench it open, you can have your look, then I’ll have to nail them back shut, then reload the truck. Do you really want to spend that time? We have a long ride ahead of ourselves.” 

Jaime feigned easy-goingness, shrugged exaggeratedly. “Guess that’s fair. Let’s go.” 

The Lannister got back into his shiny black automobile and Petyr hoisted himself up into the passenger seat of the truck. He immediately turned on Colin Payne. “Couldn’t you have waited just a few more hours before lighting up reefer?” 

Payne opened his door and flicked the roach out of the truck. “Sorry,” he grunted. The two of them had been on tense terms since his little interruption the other day. 

The two rattled on, following the small caravan of three other cars. Petyr didn’t pretend to know who all of the men were, he was too concerned with the stowaway in the back of the truck. Truthfully, there was no telling if she was actually there, it was all a game of trust. She could have stayed behind, waited until he left, and made a run for it. But something deep down told Baelish that was highly unlikely. She had made a good point, Ned Stark knew where she was…why would she bolt.? 

However, this whole plan made Littlefinger uneasy. The guns had never been mentioned to Ned or Sansa, they had been ordered the day after Littlefinger had told Sansa of the Lannister’s plan and he didn’t fully know why he had withheld that information from the girl. There was a very high possibility that Ned Stark was scheming something on his own terms that would leave Petyr Baelish a dead man. He couldn’t bring himself to fully trust Sansa and her father, he knew just how loyal the Starks were to family. Those pesky old family priorities were hard to navigate. 

But tommy guns were hard to fight against, and the Starks were old school, they might not even have the shiny, new fully automatic weapons all the way in Chicago. These machines had the ability to decimate entire gangs with just one trigger. Hell, a man didn’t even need to aim, just sweep. It seemed like an unfair advantage. But when Tywin Lannister calls and states he will be sending a truck with guns to be held at the cathouse, Petyr couldn’t say no. 

Littlefinger was relieved that the crates were nailed shut. The last thing he needed was Sansa to discover them. 

Nearly three hours later, The caravan had made their way to Philadelphia. It was an industrial looking down and the people who crowded the streets weren’t flashy. A few of them hurled verbal blows at the cars before stumbling out of the way. Petyr was pleased that he was wearing his subtle forest green suit and not one of his flashier ones. The city smelled of coal and horse shit, but he liked the noise of it. 

The Frey’s controlled this town and by the looks of it, they were doing quite well. Peytr couldn’t help but compare it to his own little seaside realm and he couldn’t help but skulk a little when he realized that Philly was much larger, even though Frey, for the most part, kept his nose out of the ordeals of the other crime families. They rolled up to the Bellevue hotel, a decadent looking thing that was trying its hardest to replicate the gilded hotels in New York. Petyr wondered how Sansa was holding up when he felt his own stiffness in his legs when he hopped out of the truck. They were parked in the back of the pack and he watched as Colin neared the rest of the group as they all walked in to the lobby. 

This was his chance. 

He gave two swift knocks on the side of the truck and quickly moved the tarp in the back to the side. Sansa quickly slipped out, her eyes wide with the excitement of it all. Seeing her was encouraging, she had come along, just like she said she would

“Walk around the block exactly twenty-five times and then go down the ally by the trash,” he whispered to her. She nodded and slipped away. He couldn’t help but notice how bright and vibrant her hair was. That gave him a pang of worry, but he didn’t have time. He quickly made his way into the lobby. 

“Lagging behind?” Jaime asked, his mouth smiling. He still wore his hat even though he was inside. He was infuriating. 

“Checking on some boxes,” Petyr replied. The lie worked and Jaime turned back to the concierge. “Is Frey here?” 

The man had his hair slicked back with motor oil and he took in the group of about 10 men with nervous flitting eyes. “Uh, yes. But I don’t know if he’s expecting-”

“Why don’t you bring us in for a visit. We’ll deal with if he expects us or not.” Jaime said, flashing one of his holsters. 

The young concierge gulped and nodded. 

Colin and the rest of the men were instructed to wait out with the cars and Jaime and Littlefinger followed the worker to one of the gala halls at the end of the lobby, no doubt reserved for lodge parties or weddings. A withered old man sat behind an oak desk. He was doing nothing but staring at a young woman with a bob lounging across a fainting couch, not nude…but close to it. She was draped across the furniture, wearing nothing but a see-through step-in with a long string of pearls layered over her neck. With one hand, she was smoking, her cigarette dangling precariously at the end of her holder. Her other was between her legs and she was putting on a show for the old man with her fingers. As they neared, Petyr could tell that she wasn’t the most beautiful, but her youth and boldness at being naked made her appear prettier than she actually was. 

Walder Frey looked up, his face contorted in anger. “Wallace, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? I’m not expecting visitors.” 

“Walder, how are you?” Jaime boomed, his arms outstretched. The girl looked up and quickly skirted to the end of the bed, looking to the old Mr. Frey for guidance. “Oh, hope I didn’t scare you babe, you’re fine where you are.” 

“Lannister?” Frey hissed, standing up. His tuxedo was outdated, but it was a surprise he was able to be dressed at all. He shuffled forward on his ivory cane, his twisted face turning into a smile. “Look at that finery, all the way from New York, eh?” Walder was ignoring Littlefinger, which was fine by him. “What brings you to my little town?” 

“We’re going to need your lobby,” Jaime drawled, crossing his arms. “And…truthfully, we might make a mess.” Frey’s eyes narrowed and he glanced at Littlefinger. “Why? And who are you? I don’t recognize you.” “Atlantic City,” Baelish said, only wanting to give him the least amount of information as possible. He didn’t like Walder Frey. As far as his history with customers went, the ones who just sat and stared were the worst, barely paying their tabs when everything was said and done. But I didn’t even do anything, they would argue. 

Walder was a watcher, and Petyr didn’t care for that. 

The old man waved his crooked fingers and the girl and the concierge both disappeared. “Why?” he asked. “Why do you need my lobby? Why are you in my town?” 

“The Starks seem to consider you a neutral checkpoint,” Littlefinger said, establishing his place in this conversation. “They are on their way, perhaps only hours out. The Lannister’s have a bone to pick with them, and your lobby is going to be the place to do it.” 

Frey scowled and the action made his face look even more wrinkled than it already was, which seemed impossible. “Any damages?” 

“…will be covered in full and then some by Tywin Lannister,” Jaime purred, smiling. 

“I don’t care for the Starks,” Walder grumbled, rubbing his old face, “They turned their backs on me even though I was good to the Tully’s.” 

“The Virginians are in their own world of tobacco,” Petyr said, “they have a short memory when it comes to favors.” 

Walder Frey didn’t think for very long before he responded with a wave of his hand. It looked like a tree root. “Fine. I don’t give a shit. I’m too old to worry about these things. Do what you need to do…but I expect payment and protection.” 

“Of course,” Jaime said, smiling. He didn’t hold out a hand to shake on it. 

“I’m going somewhere else then,” Walder muttered, “Don’t need to be in the middle of it.” 

With the old man Frey’s permission, Jaime’s men were instructed to unload the crates from the trucks. Two in all, five guns each. The lobby was emptied and staff at the hotel was instructed to go to every room and tell the patrons that they had exactly thirty minutes to leave their rooms and spend the evening somewhere else, otherwise they would be stuck in there for an unforeseen amount of time. Littlefinger watched the flurry of activity with a queasy stomach. He never fully learned what the Stark’s plan was from Sansa. But then again…it sounded like she hadn’t really gotten much information to pass on anyways. 

It was a narrow lobby, with large columns on either side, and it would either be beneficial to their party or a hindrance. A fatal funnel, so to speak. The columnsa and large concierge desk provided adequate cover and the Starks had no choice but to come in the front doors and right into harm’s way. Colin and the rest of Jaime’s men went outside to hide the cars. The plan was to park them further up the block so they wouldn’t be seen. Littlefinger watched it all happen and unfold with the knowledge that Stark knew exactly what was about to happen. 

Petyr wondered how many laps around the block Sansa had completed. 

He voiced that he was going to slip away and grab his tin of smokes that was left in the truck. 

“It’s getting a little close to show time, buddy,” Jaime responded, marveling over the oiled and working parts of the tommy gun. He kept disconnecting and attaching the magazine. He liked the metal on metal sound. 

Petyr glowered, “I’ll be fine. Don’t call me buddy.” 

Jaime shrugged and pulled on his cigarette. “Noted, pal.” 

Littlefinger wanted him to choke on the barrel of his pistol, but he marched away. 

The sun was hovered lazily in the sky, late afternoon, and he knew the Starks would be on their way soon. He ducked to the back ally, his eyes peeled for any flashes of red. He found her hunched behind a trash can, peaking out with big blue eyes. 

“There you are,” Petyr hissed. He saw the look of nervousness in her eyes and his heart sank. “What is it? Did someone see you?” 

Sansa stood up and glanced all around, “Uh, no. No one saw me.” 

“You’re doing that nervous thing I don’t like, babe” Petyr warned. He bit his cheek and tasted copper in the wake of his anxiety. 

Sansa wrung her hands and then looked at him. “I think we should get out of here.” 

“Why?” 

She gulped and pointed to the end of the ally. “I just saw some men climb up the fire escape.” 

Petyr reached out and gripped her upper arm. The look on her face filled him with dread. It wasn’t just nervousness, it was longing. She had seen someone she had missed and that’s were the look of conflict was coming from. “Sansa…who did you see?” 

Sansa gulped, “Robb. And Theon, and others. They were climbing the fire escape. The last I saw, they were going inside windows on the upper levels.” 

“For fuck’s sa-”

But before Littlefinger could finish his curse the sharp ratatattat of gunfire filled the air around them. It was coming from the lobby of the Bellevue.


	7. 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like it! I am so appreciative of all you readers and I am grateful for the feedback! Please enjoy and stay safe!

Petyr gripped Sansa’s wrist so tightly he believed that for a moment he would break her. He hauled her to the truck out front, the two of them hunched, scuttling, and panicky. He opened the door and tried his best to shove the girl inside, but she squirmed out of his grip. Before Littlefinger could curse her name, he watched her red hair billow behind her as she sprinted to the front door of the hotel, a pane of glass already shattered by the stray bullet.

“Sansa!” he hollered, running after her. Petyr watched her crouch by the door, peering in to the mess and the chaos. He knew who she was looking for. He reached her quickly, crouched between her and the glass, taking her shoulders in his hands and pressing her back up against the brick of the building. He felt exposed but there was no way in God’s name he would be letting her scramble inside.

She thrashed in his grip, stiff and frantic, desperate to look past him and gaze inside. 

“Hey!” Petyr barked, giving her a shake, “Hey, knock it off! We have to get out of here.” 

Icy eyes glared at him, dangerously strong and glinting like frosted glass. “Let me go, LET ME GO!” 

“No,” he hissed through his clenched teeth. “We are going back to the truck.” 

“My father and my brother are in there!” Sansa screeched, lunging forward and using her weight to rock Petyr back on his heels. She dashed past him and managed to scuttle inside. He cussed after her and watched as she dove behind a large pillar. He had no other choice. Tunnel vision filled Baelish’s eyes, clouding them to everything else except for the girl. The man’s mind went blank as he followed the trail of red from her hair, the truck sitting available, yet forgotten in the street. 

Baelish drew his pistol, gripping it tightly as he rushed inside. He was struggling to hear his own voice through the ringing in his ears. The bullets cracked and whizzed around them and he heard the automated cadence of the Tommy guns. He flinched violently when he saw a man running to the door take a bullet to the back of the head. He smacked wetly to the ground, the sound of bloody glass crunching beneath him. 

Sansa was crouched in a corner, blocked by a pillar as she watched the carnage. Petyr’s heart was thumping in his chest and the sweat started to soak through his shirt. He tried to step over a body, one that looked vaguely familiar, but he fell, glass grinding into his knee. Wailing could be heard next to him and he turned to look. 

Jaime Lannister was clad in his family’s favorite colors, the gold of his suit splashed and saturated with crimson blood. He was cradling his right hand and screaming. Petyr could see his hand flopped limply to the side, barely held on by spare tendons. White bone shards stuck out violently from his wrist, no doubt splintered by stray bullets. 

A crack sounded and something whizzed by dangerously close to his head, burying itself in the wall behind him. He turned and shot twice, hitting a man dead in the chest. He dropped. Petyr didn’t take the time to check who it was, he didn’t care. All he knew was that Sansa had moved again. 

“Sansa!” he screamed, but he knew it was no use. It was absolutely ridiculous to think that she could hear him in the chaos of bullets and screams. His eyes darted about frantically, barely registering that only a few feet away from him was Colin Payne, face down and stone dead. 

There! Darting behind the concierge desk! Low like a wounded dog, Petyr scuttled his way to her location. They were way too far into the lobby, submerged into the thickness of the fight. There had to be a side entrance somewhere, somewhere to get out. 

Littlefinger made it to her safely, but he was disheveled. Her back was to him and he lunged at her, gripping her and trying to pull her again. 

“We have to go, Sans-”

She wasn’t moving, all he could see was her chest heaving, unnatural like she had a sickness in her lungs. Petyr got closer to her, hand still on her arm, and he saw what that sickness was. 

Ned Stark was laying spread eagle, on his back, his bloody head and matted hair resting in his daughters lap. His eyes gazed upwards, looking at Sansa but not seeing her, not seeing anything anymore. Petyr could see three vicious, little holes stamped into Ned’s chest, his white shirt now soaked in red blood. Sansa was heaving with tears, frantically trying to wipe and smack at his face to wake him up. 

“Papa,” she wheezed through her jaw, clenched in grief. Petyr heard the thudding of bullets hitting the desk. 

If there was time, Petyr’s heart would’ve broken for the girl, but there wasn’t. So he leaned over and muttered quickly and sternly in her ear, reaching with his hand to press it against her forehead, trying to bring her closer to himself and further away from her father’s body. 

“Listen, we have to go. We have go now,” his breath puffed against her ear urgently. “Sansa, I need you to grab that pistol and we need to go now.” 

Sansa shook her head, tears still spilling down her face. “He’s dead.” 

Petyr clenched his jaw and slid past her to the other end of the concierge desk. He unceremoniously took hold of Ned Stark’s ankles and heaved him down, sliding the body away from Sansa’s hunched form. His head thumped onto floor. She yelped and tried to reach for him, but Baelish was quicker. He sidestepped Stark’s body, scooped up the revolver that was lying in his slack hand, and blocked Sansa. He scooped her up, his hands jammed forcefully beneath her armpits, and began to drag her to the side hallway, towards the sign that said smoking lounge. He knew that there had to be a service entrance. 

Shouts resounded behind him and he looked over his shoulder. Clutching her closely to him, he reached out with his other hand and fired, shooting another man dead where he stood. Sansa ripped at Petyr’s arms, no doubt her ears ringing, but he kept dragging her away from the fight. 

“Where’s Robb? I can’t find Robb!” she was screaming, but Petyr wouldn’t let her pull away. 

It was nearing dark, the sun’s light weak, when they finally burst their way through the side entrance and into the ally. Petyr decided to abandon his truck and he hauled Sansa out into the street. She was still screaming for her father, her brain turning animalistic thanks to the trauma she had just endured. 

Ears ringing and head throbbing, Littlefinger lurched the both of them out into the street and a Model T Roadster ground its way into a stop, its tinny horn blaring. The canvas topper was pulled all the way up due to the evening chill. Petyr pulled his gun and started to scream. 

“Get out of the fucking car!” he hollered, dragging Sansa around to the driver’s side. He knew how they looked but he didn’t care. All he cared about was getting the two of them out of Philly. “Get out of the car or I will blow your fucking brains out, I swear to God!” 

A banker-looking man stumbled his way out and ran when he heard the last few gunshots coming from the hotel. Petyr shoved Sansa inside and cranked the wheel after shifting into gear. The car whipped around on its narrow wheels and for a second Petyr thought he was going to tip the whole thing over, but it managed to stay on the road. He gunned it, screaming past the hotel, Sansa’s sobs echoing in the back seat. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was well past midnight by the time they pulled to a stop, the wild woods of the Appalachian Mountains starting to swell around them. A small roadside diner with a gas pump was the only signs of life they had seen for hours and Petyr felt comfortable with the distance they had put between themselves and the mess in Philly. 

He shut off the car and turned to look in the back seat where Sansa was curled up on the bench, her back to him. He almost reached out to touch her, but thought better of it. 

“Hey, get up. Let’s get you something to eat.” 

“Not hungry,” she sniffed. So she was awake. 

“Not giving you the choice, Sweetling,” Petyr said, running his hand over his hair to try and tame it. He looked down and discovered he was a mess. He unbuttoned his bloody vest and rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt, trying to hide any possible stains. The bottom of his shoes were no doubt caked in blood and he didn’t even think to look at his trouser legs. He hopped out of the car and opened up the back door and looked down at the top of Sansa’s head. 

“Get up, at least,” he huffed. 

She sat up, eyes higher than his with the height of the car. She glared at him. “My father’s dead,” Sansa said, as if this was all the reason in the world not to get out of the car. “And Robb is back there, somewhere. We left them.” 

He ignored her. “I want to see what this guy has in his compartment,” Littlefinger replied, not looking away from her. He would feel sorry for her when there was time and they were safe. “So that means you need to get up.” 

Realization hit the girl and she shimmied her way off the bench, reaching out for Petyr’s shoulder so she could help herself down. He watched her and his heart sank when he realized how much of a mess she was in the glowing light of the gas pump. Blood was slicked across the skirt of her dress and it was smeared across her skin, no doubt from unknowingly touching her face with soiled hands. 

“You’re a mess, girl,” he muttered, looking at Ned Stark’s stain. 

She was quiet. 

Petyr removed the top of the bench seat and looked inside. There was a suitcase, a small envelope with some spare cash, a bottle of whisky, an ax, a rope, and what looked like a road flare. The last three items were no doubt in case the owner had a crash, the whisky was to be hidden from his wife, the money was for whores, and who knows about the suitcase. 

Littlefinger looked inside and found some pairs of trousers, too big for him, but clean, a few wifebeaters, a couple shirts, and…amazingly…one simple cotton dress, also too big for Sansa. There was an old brown belt in the case as well. 

“Put this on,” he said, tossing it to the girl. She glanced around. 

“Where?” 

“Right here,” he said, starting to unbutton his own shirt. 

She blushed in the darkness. “I don’t want to change here.” 

“I don’t care,” Petyr argued, shrugging off his shirt and putting on a clean one over his undershirt. “But you need to change right now.” 

Sansa did as told, turning away from him and the windows of the diner to change behind the car. He followed her, granting her some privacy, but making sure he could see her. Her bralette and underclothes glowed white in the darkness and Petyr could make out the long and slender lines of her body. It was a waste of an image, truly, seeing a beautiful when he wasn’t in the right mind to enjoy it. He was as matter-of-fact as a jailor. He tossed her the belt. 

“That’s way too big for you. Use this around your waist.” 

The cinching of the waist did little to help the unshapely dress, but at least the two of them were clean. Well, almost. 

Petyr approached her and grabbed her arm, she stiffened but didn’t pull away and he didn’t know why, nor did he really notice. With no spigot around them, Littlefinger had to find another way to get the girl’s face clean. 

Baelish brought his thumb up to his mouth and licked it, trying to replicate what he had seen mother’s do to their grubby faced children. The memory wasn’t from experience, his mother had never tenderly wiped his own face clean, he had been encouraged to clean up his own messes. Petyr brought his thumb up to Sansa’s face and watched her close her eyes as he rubbed at a spot of blood on her cheek. He wiped his trouser leg, licked again, ignoring the hint of copper on his skin, and cleaned up a spot on her temple. 

Sansa knew this had been an act of necessity, not intimacy, which was why she allowed it. However she noticed how his thumb lingered just below her eye, where the tears had puffed her lids. Her eyes opened and she watched him. He looked left, then right, checking to see if they were alone, before he spoke. 

“Let me get you something to eat. It’s going to be a long ride.” It was a lame offering, but he had attempted. 

“Where are we going?” she asked, pulling away from him before dutifully following him to the diner. 

“Knoxville,” Petyr answered, keeping a hand at her back to ensure she knew he wouldn’t let her out of his sight. “Smokey mountains.” 

“I have an aunt there, I think,” Sansa said, a little unsure. Truthfully she didn’t know many members of her family, they had stayed fairly isolated in their northern city. 

The door chimed with a little bell when Petyr held the door open for her. “I know,” he muttered as he ushered her into a booth. Petyr ordered eggs, ham, toast, and hashbrowns and Sansa picked at a turkey club sandwich. Both of them asked for coffee to drink. The waitress had an accent. 

“Where are we?” Sansa wondered when the woman went away. She had lingered and tried to make small talk with Petyr, but he didn’t allow it and eventually she gave up with his one-word answers. 

“West Virginia,” the words were muffled from his bite, “Headed south west.” 

“I’ve never been to West Virginia.” 

“Not missing much,” Petyr mused. The waitress reminded him of Bev and a pang of sadness shot through him as he thought about his little lascivious empire sitting on the boardwalk. He hoped it wasn’t in ashes. 

Silence swelled around them and he was aware of the waitress’s eyes on their booth. She was no doubt trying to figure out their involvement with each other. Family or lovers? If it was family, then she could go back to daydreaming about whether or not this was the prince that had finally come to rescue her from this place. Petyr had seen that hungry, yet forlorn, look many times and he knew the less time they spent there, the better. 

He took another sip of coffee. It was burnt. 

“Ready to go soon?” he asked impatiently. She had only taken a few bites. 

“Yes,” she responded anyway. 

Littlefinger nodded at the rest of the food. “Wrap it up in your napkin. You’ll be hungry later. Her nose wrinkled but she did as told. He got up and approached the counter. 

“Hey doll, sorry but we have to leave, have to get to a function,” he said, winking. Her visible disappointment sickened him. He didn’t like sad girls. They were a bad investment, a risk far too high. 

Sansa was a sad girl….

He got back on track. He used the banker’s money to pay for their meal and a full tank of gas. 

“Clint will help you,” the waitress huffed, lighting a cigarette and keeping his change without offering it back to him. 

Petyr smiled and said thanks before he and Sansa left. They sat in the car while Clint, a burly man with a jaw that stuck out because he had no teeth and loose-looking lips, filled the tank. Sansa had reached behind Petyr’s seat and brought up the whiskey bottle. She opened it and took a swig that was respectable for any man to take, let alone a young woman. A grieving heart is thirsty, Petyr knew. 

She didn’t offer him a drink. 

“Was this part of your plan?” she asked as the liquid fire smoldered into bravery. “To get me away from the Lannisters? To kill my father?” She took another drink, smaller than the first. “Kill two birds with one stone?” 

“Why would I want to get you away from the Lannisters?” Petyr asked, watching her closely while Clint leaned against their car. 

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you want me? Are you kidnapping me?” 

It was incredible that Petyr had enough in him to bark out a laugh. “Baby, I had a house full of pussy. Why would I put everything at risk for you?” 

Embarrassment shrunk her, hunching up her shoulders so that she would be smaller. She grabbed at her hair, pulling it over her shoulder and trying to run her fingers through it, tugging at tangles nervously. 

Petyr sighed. She had just held her dead father in her lap and he had torn her away from him. She didn’t deserve his quips. 

“I’m sorry about your father,” Petyr offered, the sentiment seeming awkwardly genuine in his mouth, but he meant it. “And I’m sorry for what’s happening to you.” 

She was quiet. Clint banged on the hood of the car and the two of them were soon on their way back on the road, leaving the little diner with the sad waitress back in the woods to be forgotten. 

“You don’t deserve any of this,” Petyr said. Well…neither do I, he thought to himself, but it wasn’t time for him to have a pissing contest with a girl about who had it worse. “You got wrapped into all of this because some adults decided to have a turf war.” 

“I’m an adult,” she said and she took another drink to prove it, her eyes trained on the road, ghostly lit by the headlights. “You don’t have to pity me like I’m a child.” 

Her tears made her seem younger and Petyr apologized. 

“This wasn’t some sort of plan I had,” Littlefinger said. “Truth be told…I was hoping your father would take out all the Lannister’s, even Jaime. I’m sick of being under the thumb of that blonde-headed old fuck Tywin.” 

Sansa turned to look at him now. “Why? My father was never nice to you.” 

Petyr gripped the wheel. “How do you know that?” 

Sansa shrugged. “I guess I heard and understood more of my father’s business than I thought.” 

Littlefinger realized she had made a play against him, pretending to be naive to her father’s business when she actually knew the players in the game. 

“I don’t know a lot, but I know you tried to get with my mother, and my father always said you were a ‘sneaky little shit.’” 

“Is this why you asked if I had anything to do with what happened?” Petyr bit back at her. 

Her reply was honest. “Yes.” 

Petyr had nothing to say. She didn’t have an attitude, she wasn’t screaming anymore, and whatever tears she still shed, she did so quietly. He glanced at her here and there and mentally noted how strong she still looked in the frumpy dress and broken heart. He wondered just how much she was capable of. Ned Stark’s pistol sat heavily in his pocket and he thought about giving it to her, but he decided that would come with time and trust. The last thing he felt like doing was arming a girl who suspected him of orchestrating the death of her father. 

There was no denying that Littlefinger was partially responsible, that part was true. But Petyr felt like he had done his best to try and play the center of the field. He had been doing everything he could to protect his life, his girls, and his city. Ned’s plan had failed and that had nothing to do with him and Sansa had to know that, deep down. She was a smart girl. 

They drove in silence before Sansa finally held the bottle out to him. Her voice was quiet, ernest, and she was trying to muster up enough courage to say it. It sounded like a song. 

“Thank you for getting me out of there, I’m not ungrateful and I hope you don’t think I am.” 

Petyr took it and took a swig and he felt lighter.. It burned and reminded him that, even though the two of them were shaken up with nothing but another man’s clothes, car, and money, they were still alive. 


	8. 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for a boring chapter, just working on building some dialogue with these two.

Petyr’s leg was cramping and Sansa was dozing off, the bottle of booze still cradled in her lap. It could still be considered the better part of full, but the cortisol was wearing off and the young woman’s body had begun to unwind without needing much help of the spirits. Petyr supposed it was her mind that needed the cloudiness, not her muscles.

They were deep into the thickness of the Appalachians, the lush woods only broken by the winding little snake-like road that Petyr was hoping would take him all the way to Knoxville. Just outside of the town were the Smoky Mountains and that’s where, if the information he had gleaned for Tywin was still correct, Arryn’s wife continued running the lucrative shine business. The car rattled and groaned just when there lights ahead. Another rest stop. 

Petyr pulled up and glanced at Sansa’s sleeping form, her red hair glowing deeply with the red he had once lusted after as a boy. Her young face was slack, bottom lip pushed out from her slouched form, pouted like a little pink strawberry. He was sitting very close to her in the cramped cab of the Model T and he could smell her sweat mixed in with stale soap. Or maybe it was his sweat….

Petyr’s hand twitched and he wondered how soft her hair really was. 

Stirring, she let out a small sigh and Petyr swallowed. She looked so much like her mother, and yet so different. No wrinkles, no worry lines. No tiredness of a hard life. The last twenty-four hours would surely etch its way into the woman’s face, forever mapping the severity of her grief. Petyr’s hand twitched and he wondered how soft her hair really was. It wasn’t fair for her to be thrust into adulthood so violently and against her will. 

Then again…it had happened to him. The ghostly ache of his puckered scar whispered their similarities. 

Enough. He glanced out to the gas tank and the little wooden and tin garage. It was leaning to the side, groaning as it slowly allowed itself to be swallowed up by the woods. A man stepped out, overalls over a flannel shirt, blocking out the early, early morning chill. 

“Top off?” he asked. Tobacco was packed into his bottom lip. He didn’t offer his name and Petyr didn’t ask for it. 

Baelish only nodded and handed him too much money. He felt sorry for the old man in the woods, all alone, but he knew that, realistically, the money was a misguided charity. The gas pump attendant had nowhere to spend it. He drank what he brewed, ate what he hunted and what he canned, and wore the same clothes that his father had. 

Regardless, the man pocketed the money without offering back change. He didn’t have any, he told Petyr though the dip. 

The car swayed lightly when the mechanic began to fuel and Sansa grumbled in her sleep, straightening up before leaning back over and pressing her head against the door. She was still fast asleep. Petyr opened the door to the car and stuck his head out, watching as the man spat a gob of juice onto the ground. 

“You got a phone?” 

The man shook his head. “Naw, no phone.” 

He chastised himself as he shut the door and huffed in his seat. It was a stupid question. 

“What do you need a telephone for?” came a curious voice from the other side of the bench. Petyr turned to face Sansa, who was rubbing her eyes. She looked sleepy still. 

“Go back to sleep,” Petyr answered instead. “We still have a while.” 

“I’m up now,” she yawned. “What time is it?” 

“About four in the morning,” Petyr responded when he pulled out his pocket watch and checked. It had been shoved into his trouser pocket, not the one with Starks gun, when he changed shirts. He felt the weight of the pistol when he shifted in his seat , made even heavier by the guilt he was beginning to feel. But it was misplaced, that guilt, he wasn’t regretting the death of Ned Stark, for obvious, selfish reasons…but he did feel poorly about not giving his gun to Sansa. She needed protection. But she was a risk if armed and a liability if she wasn’t. 

Sansa reached into the glove compartment and fished out the napkin she had used to wrap up the rest of her sandwich. She nibbled at it. “Who were you going to call?” 

The old man finished fueling the truck and Petyr started up the car and rattled away. They were back on the road and the swelling darkness of the trees became a little more suffocating now that Petyr felt Sansa’s eyes drilling into him. 

“I was going to call your aunt, Lysa.” 

Her eyes narrowed. “Why?” 

Petyr shrugged. “Going to give her a heads up.” 

Sansa took another bite of the sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. Then she spoke again, her eyebrows furrowed. “But…why…are we going to my aunt’s? I barely know her.” 

“I do,” Petyr replied and the memory of Lysa’s neediness made him grip the steering wheel. 

“Why do you?” 

“Chock full of questions, aren’t you, babe?” Petyr sniped. 

“Don’t call me babe,” Sansa reminded, “It’s my family we’re going to see. I want to know why.” 

Littlefinger glanced away from the road for a moment and looked at her. Her sandwich sat on her lap and she appeared to be done with it. His own stomach grumbled and he reached for it, noticing how she stiffened when his fingertips grazed the fabric of her skirt. The rest of the sandwich was gone in a few bites. Truthfully, Petyr used the snack as a stall so he could craft some sort of answer for her. 

“Trust me,” he replied instead of giving her anything real. He was thirsty so he snapped his fingers and pointed at the whisky. “Pass that over here.” 

She didn’t . “I tried to trust you,” she said, holding on to the bottle and picking at the label. “And look what happened.” 

There was no response for him to come up with. 

“I knew your mother and your aunt from childhood. Lysa and I have…a past of sorts.” He hunched, a little embarrassed. 

“Did you love her?” Sansa asked. 

“No.” 

“That’s right,” she mused. “You loved my mother.” There was no cruelty in her voice, no jabs or sarcasm…just observation, as if she was trying to use her own voice to sort out her thoughts. She passed Petyr the whisky and he gratefully took a swig. “Did my aunt love you?” 

Littlefinger was quiet. He corked the booze and handed it back. The two of them rattled down the road in silence and Sansa didn’t pester. 

“She thought she did,” Littlefinger finally answered. 

“How old were you?” 

He shrugged. “Sixteen, seventeen maybe? Dumb kids.” 

Sansa picked at the fabric of the dress that wasn’t hers. “Why have you never come to the North? To Chicago? If you and my mother’s family have all of this history, why have you never visited her?” 

For a split second, Petyr wondered why she was so full of questions. But then it dawned on him. She was stuck in a car with a stranger, headed to another stranger’s house. The people she knew were dead…well…at least her father was, for sure. The girl probably just wanted some sort of familiarity, even if it was forced against Baelish’s usual will of privacy. 

He tried to joke. “I was a ‘sneaky little shit,’ remember? They wouldn’t have wanted a visit.” 

Sansa shrugged. “Kids do stupid stuff all the time. My sister used to-” she halted, the memory sharp and stinging. Her voice was a little unsure when she spoke again, switching tactics so she wouldn’t have to think about her family. “If you did something as a sixteen year old kid, why would my parents hold that against you into adulthood?” 

“Sweetheart, I have a long history of making bad decisions.” But deep down he was appreciative of her reasoning. Not many people have that sort of rationality so young. “How old are you, anyway?” he asked. He pretended that knowing how old the girl was would open him up to Cat’s life. Her timeline. 

“Twenty-two. How old are you?” she returned. 

She was older than he thought. It made sense. She looked more woman than girl. “Older than you,” he replied, giving a sly little half smile. 

Sansa stared out the windshield when she replied. “I figured that with that gray hair of yours.” 

His brow furrowed and he ran a hand up over his temple. His pinky ring glinted in the darkness. She was half his age, beautiful and strong and he couldn’t help but feel a little defensive and small knowing how her parents had spoken of him. She already had an opinion of Petyr Baelish before she was even in his care. The distaste bloomed in his stomach and he felt heartburn from it. He had pined for the girl’s mother for so long and it didn’t matter. It was all wasted time and wasted daydreams. All that time, Catlyn had gone around with her bulky husband, Ned, and ran their mouths about him. Even though all he had tried to do was love her and build his life. 

They mistook his ambition for sneakiness. A hard-working business man was nothing but a sly thief in their eyes. They probably laughed at him right before they fucked. “Remember when you showed little Petyr who’s boss?” she would murmur before nestling her head between his legs. 

He started to grow angry in his own head. Part of him wanted to boot Sansa out of the cab and leave her stranded in the woods just to punish Cat, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. She was her own person, she wasn’t her mother. 

“I’m going to drop you off at you’re aunt’s. That’s the plan.” 

“Where will you go?” Sansa asked. 

He did not mistake her curiosity for concern. “Back to Atlantic City, probably,” he shrugged. “There’s nowhere else for me to go.” 

“You’ll get killed,” Sansa said simply. “If you go back there you’re probably as good as dead.” 

“How do you figure?” 

“Well,” she grunted as she bent over and removed her shoes and socks. She leaned back in the seat and propped up her feet on the dashboard as best as she could manage. “By leaving with me you have sealed off any point of alliance you may have had.” 

He was surprised. “What?” 

Sansa didn’t look at him as she laid out her thoughts, her hands moving with the words. “Well…Chicago will think you killed my father and then stole me, and New York will think you set up a trap and stole me.” She looked at him. “So why did you steal me?” 

“I thought we established that I didn’t steal you,” Petyr grunted, seeing both sides of her point and he was at a loss. He felt like a cornered rat and a twinge of panic started slither up his legs. 

“Fine. Why did you save me? That’s something we need to clear up. You said you weren’t kidnapping me…so why did you shove me in this car and drive me away?” 

“I had a backup plan,” Petyr snapped. He was growing short. “And if you were still there you’d be dead, like your father, and probably like your brother.” 

He didn’t mean for his words to come out as sharply as they did, but he was growing tired and ornery of being on the road. The sun was starting to rise but the shadows of the trees still clung greedily to the road. 

“That’s not a reason why,” Sansa pressed, almost starting to sound petulant. 

“I don’t know why, ok?” Littlefinger barked, pulling over to the side of the road. He shifted into park and turned on the bench seat, one arm across the back and the other pointing at Sansa. “Look, I don’t know why I decided to fucking help you. It’s not what I wanted. Look at where it’s landed us. In the bum-fuck nowhere. And here I am, surely a wanted man by the two biggest families in this country, trying to help out the daughter of the bitch woman I used to love. And the only thing I get in return is the loss of my city and my businesses and a price on my head.” 

Silence hung between them like a damp blanket hung out to dry, his anger dripping from it in little strands. The stress was mounting and Petyr couldn’t stop. 

“I have to sit here with a girl grieving over her dead father, a girl who had no idea just how big of a brute he actually was and what he’s done. I have to drive you to the only place this side of the Mississippi that I know will be safe for you and that in itself is a giant risk, considering the history between me and your aunt.” 

He dropped the finger he was pointing with and shoved it into his pocket, pulling out Ned’s gun. Sansa stiffened and pressed her back against the door, desperate to put distance between them in the small cab. Petyr tossed it on the seat in front of her. 

“You know what? Fuck it. This was your father’s. Take it. Shoot me, it would get me out of this whole mess a lot faster. And then you don’t have to worry about kidnapping, or ulterior motives, or if you can trust me. Even though I killed two men back there in order to get you safe. I’ll be dead and you’ll have a car and money and a plan.” 

Littlefinger was breathing heavily and a little nagging voice whispered to him in the back of his head. It told him how stupid his outburst was, how childish. He was a full grown man and he was throwing a tantrum like a child. 

Sansa was quiet. “You killed two men in the hotel?” 

Petyr turned away from her, sitting back in the seat and running a hand through his dirty hair. His face itched with stubble. “Yes.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I felt like I had to.” 

Petyr waited for her to pick it up. He didn’t close his eyes as he waited for her move. She reached out with long, unsure fingers. Littlefinger’s breath caught. 

“Here,” Sansa murmured quietly, cradling her father’s pistol in her hand, unfamiliar with it in her grip. “Take it back.” 

“It should be yours.” 

“Not yet,” she insisted, handing it to him. “It’s not what I want. I don’t want it.” 

Petyr took the gun from her and put it back in his pocket where it sat uncomfortably. 

“I’ll stop questioning you,” Sansa mumbled. 

“No,” Petyr said embarrassed by his outburst. “A smart girl asks questions. A dumb one just goes along with what people tell her to do. I’m not interested in a dumb one.” 

“Interested?” 

Petyr stuttered. “Interested in protecting.” 

“Right,” she agreed, almost a little relieved. “How much longer until we get to my aunt’s?” 

“Maybe an hour or two, but we’re almost there,” Petyr answered as he started the car and pulled back out onto the road. 

Neither of them spoke until the rolling hills and dense trees grew into mountain bluffs. Looming above them like a roosted vulture sat a massive A-frame style lodge that sat carved into one of the bluffs overlooking a densely wooded valley. A long, winding, dirt driveway branched off from the main highway without signs, a little covered bridge leading the way across a twisting brook. Petyr turned the car onto the dirt road and saw Sansa crane her neck to look up towards the main house. 

They had arrived. 


	9. 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry if anyone is losing interest, i hope i'm not making it too boring!
> 
> Also, Egg coffee is a real thing. My grandparents always made it whenever we were in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is where my mother's family is from. I still spend a lot of time in the UP and it's very dear to my heart!
> 
> As always, thank you all for reading!
> 
> -J

The house smelled of cedar, like the old hope chest Petyr’s mother had kept her quilts in. Musty, but not unpleasantly so, almost like the inside of an old museum, timely and full of stories. Littlefinger couldn’t help but inhale deeply, sucking in the air of the home he didn’t own, and a pang of jealousy shot through him. It was quickly overshadowed by the tingling of pins and needles in his heels as the blood flow slowly began to circulate back into his feet. Sansa shifted uncomfortably next to him, the two of them watched closely by the skinny man with a full beard that sat in Lysa Arryn’s foyer.

“Niece?” he had grunted, barely allowing the odd pair to come inside. He was suspicious. 

“I haven’t seen my Aunty Lysa in ages,” Sansa pleaded, even though it was a lie. She had never seen her Aunty Lysa. “Will you tell her I am here?” 

Instead he let them in, wiry yet strong in his coveralls that were stained in dried mud and what looked like motor oil. Petyr slipped in behind Sansa and there the two of them stood, frumpy, exhausted, and in need of a bath and hot meal. The foyer had opened up organically into the main sitting room, tall ceilings, big windows, and log beams. A copper and tile kitchen was to the left and deep somewhere in the home a muffled record player was chiming away. The morning light shined in through the massive glass and one could see through out over the bluffs and trees that surrounded them. On the right side of the living room a wrought iron spiral staircase wound its way to the upper level, very modern. 

“Who are you?” Sansa finally asked awkwardly after the man with the beard stomped off to the kitchen and found a younger girl. They watched as he muttered to her and she scuttled away, her hair coiled into the tightest of brown curls, bobbing like little springs. 

“Royce,” the man said. He grumbled as if he was missing a few teeth, his lips loose. He brought up a cigarette to his lips and Petyr knew immediately by its lumpy wrapper that it wasn’t tobacco. “Caleb Royce.” 

“Are you married to my Aunty Lysa?” she asked sweetly and Littlefinger wondered if she was playing a game, playing up her naiveté. 

Royce bared down on the inhale of smoke, holding it and sucking at his teeth for a few seconds. Petyr admired his ability to hold the reefer before the bearded man exhaled in a big, skunk smelling cloud and he shook his head. 

“I help her.” 

Sansa nodded as if that meant something to her. “Oh,” she said, quietly. She took a long pause. “May I use the restroom?” 

He pointed down the hall and to the kitchen. “Water closet is over there.” 

Petyr tried his best to keep his chin level and his eyes even when Sansa left. He was very much out of his element but he’d be damned if he let Royce tell he was uncomfortable. Funny how after a ten hour drive he had grown somewhat accustomed to the girl’s presence. 

He heard footsteps on the metal staircase and he felt his heart sink, squirming and off like milk that had just spoiled. Lysa. 

The widow Arryn strode into the foyer clad in a satin floor length dressing gown, roses embroidered into the fabric. Her hair was coiled into a braid and she had rouge on her cheeks and stain on her lips in a show of desperation, clinging to her own idea of femininity while she wasted away in the mountains. 

“Petyr!” she exclaimed breathlessly, a step away from swooning. Petyr reached deep into the pit of his belly and mustered up a grin for her. 

“Hello, dear Lysa,” he beamed, reaching forward and playing her excitement like a fiddle. Her joy at seeing him was a tool to his advantage. He could make this work. She glided into his arms and let him embrace her, her own arms looping delicately around his neck and she held on for a moment too long. He could feel the woman’s fingertips take soft little liberties with touching the nape of neck.

“You didn’t call…I thought you would before a visit,” she purred, purposefully humming her voice lower so he could feel her chest rumble against his. 

Baelish played the role of the embarrassed and bashful child. “I know, honey, but I couldn’t get to a phone. Some things went down.” 

Lysa’s brows furrowed and Petyr noticed the amount of wrinkles that mapped across her forehead. He could also see the crow’s feet that cradled her eyes. He wondered if life was stressful in the mountains. “What things?” 

The sound of rushing water alerted the woman to Sansa as she made her way out of the kitchen. Lysa glanced at her and her breath hitched in disappointment. She turned to Petyr. 

“Company?” she asked and Petyr could tell that the veil of hospitality was strained. She had wanted it to be just him visiting with no other…distractions. 

“Hello,” Sansa greeted quietly. Her cheeks were flushed and Petyr couldn’t resist the slight smile that twitched his lips. He secretly admired her blush, the color that leached into her normally ivory skin was something worth watching. She was shy and uncomfortable with the new environment. 

Lysa was a gracious host, well trained in the Tully tradition of having well-behaved women. “Hello, my dear, my how it’s been years.” 

Sansa looked confused. “You know who I am?” 

Petyr couldn’t tell if they were smile lines that curved around Lysa’s mouth like parentheses or if they were just the wrinkles of bad genetics. “Honey, I see my sister in you plain as day. You’re my niece, dear. You think I’m blind?” 

Sansa glanced at Littlefinger and he gave her the subtlest of nods. She smiled. “I know, silly me. I just never remember meeting you.” 

Lysa’s smile didn’t quite meet her eyes. She seemed rehearsed. “I held you as a baby. You have a cousin, you know. Would you like to meet him?” 

Petyr wanted to roll his eyes in the wake of the dance of manners and the etiquette shared between the women. He didn’t want to watch Sansa meet her cousin. He didn’t want to listen to the two of them catch up. He wanted three beers, two shots of gin, a meal, a shower, and a bed. 

“Lysa, could I speak to you in the kitchen? Alone?” Petyr asked, dipping his chin and watching her closely. This time the smile did indeed reach her eyes and suddenly Sansa was just a fly on her wall. 

“Bernie, take Sansa upstairs so she can meet Robyn, alright?” Lysa said, addressing the curly-headed girl without looking at her. She tapped her fingernails together, shellacked like tile, an excited tick she had.

“Yess’m,” Bernie replied dutifully. Sansa glanced at Baelish before allowing herself to be lead away and, internally, he could feel Lysa notice the exchange. She quickly ushered him into the kitchen like a sheepdog ushering livestock. 

“Royce, please make coffee,” Lysa requested, her eyes never leaving Petyr. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet and when she noticed she offered for him to sit at the worn kitchen table. Royce obediently combined grounds with water. Petyr watched as Lysa’s man plucked an egg from the basket on the counter and cracked it into a metal percolator and set it on the stove, taking out a book of matches and lighting it as he did so. Petyr remembered watching his father share egg coffee with the Tully men, the fat and the protein adding the richness that kept them going throughout the day. Plus the grounds stuck to the egg. 

When the coffee was done brewing the surface of his cup shone like an oil spill but he was pretended to be greateful, even though he eyed the loaf of bread that was visible on the counter over Lysa’s shoulder. 

“So,” she said, sipping her own drink while leaning over conspiratorially, “are you in trouble, honey?” She was in his space and he wanted to recoil, find a soft bed and take a nap. Alone. “Why’s Sansa with you?” 

He sighed and tried his best to look needy, which wasn’t much of an effort. “Yes, Lysa…somehow I’ve ended up in trouble.” 

She looked saddened for him, pursing her lips and tutting while she reached out and placed a hand on his arm. She was skinnier than he remembered, her knuckles looking like the knots of a tree. Lysa smelled like pine sap and Petyr couldn’t help but imagine the pads of her fingers being sticky like syrup. “You look like hell, honey.” 

“I know,” Littlefinger mumbled, trying to look desperate even though her words made him bristle. “I had nowhere to go.” He took another drink of his coffee and he tasted some grounds that hadn’t stuck to the egg. He then told her everything that had happned, gleaning over some of the shady parts and bolstering up how truly neutral he was trying to be. He claimed he was doing what he thought was right, even though he was only doing what he thought would be best for him. Lysa listened dutifully, her face awash with sympathy and concern. She would murmur in agreement and reassurance, eating it up and being as supportive as anyone could be. 

When he was finally done, Petyr was quiet. “Lysa...I’m sorry…but we’re going to need some things. ” 

She withdrew her hand. “We?” 

He looked at her blankly. “Yes, we. Sansa?” 

The woman’s eyelids fluttered in recollection. “Oh.” She seemed disappointed. 

“How are you, you know…after Jon’s death?” 

There was a knot in the surface of the wooden table and Lysa twirled her fingertip around it lazily. “Oh, you know. Lonely, mostly, up on this hill.” 

Petyr wouldn’t let her switch tactics. “No, sweetheart, I mean how’s business? Are you comfortable?” 

Lysa smiled, suddenly proud of herself. “Oh, very. I’ve managed to maintain the numbers just as well, if not better, than he had. It’s foolish to think how so many men fail to realize that women can be successful too.” 

“So, you will be able to return that loan I sent to you after the funeral.” There was no getting around it and Petyr blurted it out heavy-handedly. 

Stiffening, Lysa’s eyes darkened. She leaned away from Baelish, acting like he had just spit on her brand new dress. “That was a gift,” she argued. 

“No, honey,” he said, giving her a smile, trying to reel her back in. “remember? We joked that the only interest I would have to collect would be a dinner and drink the next time I saw you.” 

He was hoping that she would remember their flirtation, cling to it like a little girl clings to the dream of a big wedding or prince charming. He needed that money and he needed those favors and this was not the time for her to play dumb. Too much was at stake. 

“I remember,” she finally conceded, “I had looked forward to that.” 

Petyr gritted his back teeth and hoped the lowness of his voice would be mistaken for desire and not dread. “If you permit me to, maybe we can make up for that dinner while I’m here?” 

Lysa brightened up and she almost looked pretty and youthful, were it not for the wiry cords in her neck and the glint in her eye that looked suspiciously manic. “Oh, that would be wonderful!” 

Winking, Petyr sipped his overly rich coffee. “Swell,” he said, “it’s a date.” He tried to ignore as Lysa continued tracing the grains in the wooden table, her finger delicately inching its way over to him. She was probably expecting some sort of intimacy or light touch of the hand but he was in no mood to butter her up even more. He had done more than enough, his frayed nerves couldn’t take any more sweetly disingenuous flirting. 

“Is there a place I could catch a quick nap?” Petyr asked, setting down his coffee cup now that it was finally empty. He could feel the grounds in his teeth. 

“Of course, I have a room upstairs.” 

“One for your niece as well?” Baelish reminded her as they stood up from the table. 

“One for her too,” came the reply after a brief pause. 

The two climbed the spiral staircase and Littlefinger rolled his eyes as he watched the woman step and sway with more movement then what was necessary. It was a cheap trick that his newly hired girls would always try and pull, thinking that extra movement in the hips made them appear more desirable. All it did was make Lysa look like one of her legs was shorter than the other. The satin hugged her body and, while she was well-built, the woman was so far from Littlefinger’s attractions that she might have well been built like a board. 

Before they could even make it to the upstairs landing they heard a yell, a thump, and then wailing. The yell was distinctly feminine as it reached Petyr’s ear and he bristled, darting forward to the door just across the hall, but the good Lady Arryn beat him to it. She all but kicked it open, her thin hand gripping the knob. 

“What is going on in here?” she shrieked, “Robyn!” 

The woman swept inside, satin gown billowing, and scooped up her son as he lay sobbing on the floor. Sansa was standing awkwardly next to his bed, her hand up to her eye. She was crying as well. Toys were littered about and Petyr saw what looked like a small rifle lying among them, the little handle below the trigger betraying it as a BB gun. 

Immediately he crossed the room to her, taking her arm and trying to pull it away from her face but she was resisting, instead looking past him and backing up in fear. 

Lysa charged her, manic and angry. “What did you do to my son?!” 

“I didn’t do anything!” the girl yelled. “He shot me!” 

Petyr turned and looked at the sniveling little boy on the ground, now kneeling, snot dribbling out of his reddened nose and down his face. “We were playing!” he argued, hiccupping. “And she wasn’t being fair! She said she was going to break my toys and then she pushed me!” 

Lysa heard what her son had to say and her mind was immediately made up. “Apologize to my son.” 

Sansa’s face darkened, her hand still covering her left eye. “No. Your son should apologize to me.” 

Jaw clenched and jutting like an angered bull, Lysa narrowed her eyes before spinning on her heals and crouching to coddle her little crying boy. She growled at her niece between coos and hushes. “I won’t tell you again. Apologize to Robyn for ruining his playtime.” 

Mouth hanging open in disbelief, Sansa allowed Petyr to take her wrist and withdraw her hand. There was indeed a small little puncture on her left cheek, dangerously close to the sensitive tissue of her lower eyelid. It looked like a red beauty mark or a large freckle and it welled with a teardrop of blood. Petyr leaned forward and dabbed at it with his thumb and she winced. He took the opportunity to whisper to her. 

“I’m going to need you to say sorry. You don’t have to mean it.” 

Sansa closed her mouth. “I’m sorry, Robyn.” 

The tears stopped but there was still mucus on his face. A small little shit-eating smirk wound its way across the boy’s face like a snake that had slithered through an oil spill. 

Littlefinger felt her body stiffen while he still pressed his thumb against her cheek in order to apply pressure. 

“I’m sorry I ruined your playtime.” 

“I think we could really just use some sleep, Lysa, honey, if that’s ok with you?” Baelish was trying to deescalate. He had withdrawn his hand and wiped Sansa’s blood away on the trousers. 

Lysa watched him, her lips pressed into a thin, hard line. “Yes, I think you should go to bed.” 

The statement and her tone reeked of danger but Petyr just wanted rest. Wanted Sansa to rest and the both of them just wanted to get out of her brat’s room. Lysa shushed to her son and picked him up, the boy much too large to be cradled by her slight frame, and brought him to his bed. 

“Get some clothes on, sweet boy,” she cooed, “And Caleb will bring you outside to play with the chickens.” 

“I want breakfast,” he whined and Petyr watched in disgust as he reached out and grabbed at her bosom greedily. Lysa beamed at her son. “I will be back in a moment.” 

Sansa kept her eyes trained on the floor as she followed her aunt and Littlefinger back out in to the hallway, her cool fingertips pressed against her cheek. Petyr could tell by her body language that she was upset, understandably so. Lysa was treating her like a child she didn’t like, no doubt frustrating to take, especially in the wake of her grief. 

Lysa Arryn opened the door to a simple and small guest room. A thin mattress made up with a quilt and a couple pillows. A rug was on the floor and crammed next to the bed was a little vanity desk with a pitcher, basin, and a mirror, the reflective surface flecked with those permanent little spots that mirrors get whey they aren’t properly cleaned. 

“You can sleep here,” Lysa informed her niece rather brusquely. She eyed Sansa’s lumpy dress, cinched ridiculously around her waist with the worn leather belt. “I’ll have Bernie find some of my old clothes, they should fit you.” 

“Thank you,” Sansa murmured, still looking at the floor. 

“I would prefer it if you didn’t sleep the whole day away,” Lysa quipped, “There are some things that can be helped with around the house in order to make up for your stay.” 

The girl’s head shot up. Everything about her face implied disbelief and even Petyr was surprised by Lysa’s instructions. The woman was well aware of Sansa’s situation yet it seemed as if she couldn’t care less. 

She was put out by her niece’s presence, to say the least. 

Her aunt turned to leave and Petyr’s eyes were soft when they met. He gave her a nod and followed, shutting the door behind him. 

The room that Petyr was going to stay in was considerably larger and more decadent. A four-poster bed decorated in padded quilts, extravagant rugs on the floor, and a large walnut wardrobe and dresser tucked pressed flush against an entire wall. There were framed snapshots of Robyn and Lysa everywhere, most of them posed, stiffed, and unsmiling. 

Petyr felt like ice when he realized that he had allowed himself to be led to Lysa’s own private bedroom. 

“You can sleep here,” she gushed, holding out her hand in invitation. “The bed is comfortable and you will be relaxed in no time.” 

Unlikely, Littlefinger thought. The idea of snuggling under her covers made his skin crawl. 

“I’m sorry won’t be able to stay, Robyn needs me…he’s very upset,” she pouted. She took advantage of Petyr staring around the room and moved in front of him. She boldly looped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard, her lips mashing against his in a show of desperation, rather than excitement. He stiffened and let her kiss him, only minutely moving his lips to keep her from feeling insulted. 

He thought of the whiskey that was still down in the car and he craved it to burn away the taste of her lips from her mouth. 

When she finally pulled away she was beaming and her cheeks were flush. Littlefinger felt as if she had just sucked some life out of him. 

“Sweet dreams, honey,” Lysa purred before slipping away and shutting the door. 

Littlefinger wiped at his face with his hand but it didn’t matter because he still felt the sticky sickness of Lysa’s attraction on his lips. 

He slept restlessly on top of the covers and he could smell her perfume around her. It churned his stomach and he dreamt of being chased by witches. He momentarily woke up, groggy, and managed to roll over, trying to ignore the smell of Lysa’s pillow. When Petyr was finally able to drift back to sleep, he thought of punching Robyn Arryn square in his smug little face with Sansa’s blood on still on his fingers. 


	10. 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking with this little Pet Project of mine! comments are always wanted! - J

Sansa had never had it in her to be cruel to animals. True, she wasn’t quite like her sister, Aria, who had always been consumed by the urge to pet, covet, and love every creature she had come across. Instead, Sansa usually found herself admiring the horses in the stable or the cows in the stalls from a distance, except for the little cat she had kept when she was younger.

However, with a bag full of feed hanging from her shoulder and the strap digging into her flesh, Sansa stood brooding and hateful over Lysa’s fat, dumb chickens. She wanted to kick them, see how far they could go, like feathered little balls. Robyn was taunting her from the wire fence. 

“Watch out for the rooster, he’ll peck you!” 

Sansa ignored her rotten little cousin and grabbed another fistful of seed and threw it down forcefully in the birds’ faces. They didn’t mind, pecking it up as quickly as they could and they looked like little wind-up toys. They clucked and cooed and had Sansa not been so exhausted she would’ve found them a little charming, especially the small and spry Bantams that were mixed in with the big and meaty hens. But she was tired and she was angry, so the girl was unable to find any endearing qualities in the yard birds. 

Lysa had sent Bernie to wake her up barely two hours after the girl had lain down. She had just finally entered a deep and tired sleep before she was being rocked awake. Bernie seemed apologetic, at least, smiling at Sansa while she handed her a cotton dress and step-in that had fit much better than the first one. At some point the dress had been lilac, with lace around the neckline, but after years of sitting un-worn in a wardrobe it had faded to an almost gray color. Bernie had filled up the basin with warm water and left a bar of soap and a sponge. If she couldn’t be well rested, at least she would be clean. 

“Sorry,” Bernie winced before she left. 

Petyr was nowhere to be found when Sansa had gone downstairs. There was a bologna sandwich and glass of milk on the table waiting for her. Her aunt was sitting at the table and looking at a large ledger, a pencil in her hand. 

“Chicken’s need to be fed,” she said without looking up. “Robyn will show you where the feed is. I expect no more fighting, is that understood?” 

Sansa had darkened and her cheek smarted with the urge to argue but she smothered it with the milk she drank. She didn’t want to eat the sandwich because she didn’t like bologna, but she didn’t want Lysa to get any chillier with her presence than she already was. So she ate it, quietly and dutifully. 

So there she stood, staring down a mean old rooster with Robyn Arryn snickering behind her, protected by the fence. A horsefly buzzed around her head and she swiped her arm at it, welts from past bites already on her skin. Today had been the day that she discovered she hated the deep woods of the mountains. 

When the chickens were finally fed her cousin handed her a little wicker basket. “Mama says you need to pick the beans in the garden for supper.” 

She dropped the feed bag, ignoring the spilled seeds, and grabbed the basket with a huff. “Where’s the garden?” 

He pointed with the finger that had just been shoved up his right nostril. “Over there.” Robyn followed her, his footsteps heavy and lazy. Sansa wondered if he had ever done any type of chore in his entire life. 

Then again, she shouldn’t be so judgmental. She hadn’t really been raised to be working stock either. She thought of her soft bed and plush house in Chicago. Their nurse, Alda, who would cook them warm meals and fix the cocoa in the cold winters. She thought of her father reading to them, even Robb who tried to pretend he was too old to hear the stories. He hadn’t been punched full of holes and covered in blood then, he had been whole and strong, lovingly watchful over his children. 

“Make sure you’re picking the good beans!” Robyn hollered, pointing at the trellis that held the vines. He had snapped her from her memories and drug her back to this stupid garden. She threw a fistful of green beans into her basket and felt the sting of frustrated tears. 

“Robyn, your mother is asking for you,” came a quiet voice from the fence. Sansa looked up and saw Petyr, a white cotton shirt tucked into plain trousers and suspenders. The sleeves were rolled to try and fight the afternoon heat. 

“Why?” Robyn questioned, wrinkling his nose. He didn’t want to leave his role of bean supervisor. Sansa figured he would be a foreman when he grew up, gloatingly watching all of the workers do his labor for him. 

“She says you need a snack.” 

Robyn perked up and scampered back, dreadfully uncoordinated and gangly as he made his way across the yard. Petyr watched him go before turning and looking at the girl knelt between the trellises of the garden. Her hair was braided and he thought of the golden-red challah he used to buy on the East Side. 

“What are you doing in there?” he asked, leaning forward and crossing his arms on the frame of the fence. 

Her eyes darkened. “Working,” she spat, plucking a few more vegetables and tossing them into the basket. 

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. He had shaved, save for the trimmed little mustache and goatee that looked like it had been stamped onto his face. His hair was combed and he looked remarkably put-together, but his eyes still looked tired. 

“No,” Sansa responded. “I got woken up just in time for chores. Barely had time to bathe.” 

She blushed when she said it, fearful that her words would give Baelish imaginative permission to think of her naked. 

He had tried not to, but the missing of his girls made his self-control weak. Her dress had short sleeves and Petyr shamelessly watched her long and toned arms reach for the vines and plants, her delicate fingers plucking the green beans and putting them in her basket. Baelish had never been a fan of the idea of farm life, but seeing her in the garden, more beautiful than her mother had been, made him hungry for the idea of a secluded place with a good woman to bake him bread and tend his garden. 

“Do you need something?” Sansa eventually asked, glancing at him. 

He straightened up, hands outstretched in mock apology. “Whoa, honey,” he grinned, “ I just wanted to come and see if you were ok, that a crime?” 

Sansa deemed her harvest acceptable and stood up, propping the basket against her hip without even thinking about it, like the generations of women were conditioned to do so before her. “I’m not too pleased with this situation,” she said, “I didn’t sign up to be a servant to my aunt.” 

“With all due respect, Sansa, you never really signed up for anything. Neither did I,” Petyr mused, watching the curve of her hip. “I didn’t sign up to be a babysitter, now did I?” “Don’t fool yourself,” Sansa snapped, nearing the gate. “You’re no babysitter, and if you think that you are then that’s a stupid thing to do.” 

His eyebrows rose. “That so?” 

She set down her basket. “Yeah. It is. It seems to me that we’re in this together, mutually. So there’s no ‘babysitting’ involved,” she argued, curving her fingers in sarcastic quotations. She crossed her arms and then stared at him, biting her lip before she spoke again. “Besides. I don’t think you would try to give me a gun if you truly felt like you were my babysitter.” 

Petyr said nothing. She was speaking the truth and she knew it, she didn’t need his reassurance or agreement to tell her that. 

“I don’t like Lysa. Or Robyn.” Sansa finally said, glancing over Baelish’s shoulder, towards the main house. 

Petyr looked at the mark on her cheek. “Neither do I.” 

It was Sansa’s turn to lean on a fence pole. She propped her chin up on her palm. “She certainly seems to like you.” 

“Not my choice,” Petyr shrugged. “How’s your cheek?” 

“Fine.” 

“Let me see,” he said, stepping over to her. She allowed him to take her chin gently in his hand and he turned her face so the sun was shining on her skin. The mark was starting to form a little scab, but there was a halo of redness around the wound, inflamed. Littlefinger got closer and he could smell the soap on her ivory skin, smooth like the basin he had in his room. His thumb twitched, bute thought better of touching the little wound because it would surely smart. 

He let go of her face, the warmth lingering. “You’ll probably have a scar.” 

“Wonderful,” Sansa groused as she retrieved her basket. “Just another thing to look forward to.” She made her way to the gate but Petyr stepped in the way and blocked her from leaving. 

“What are you doing?” she warily asked, leaning backwards slightly. Petyr watched her closely before leaning forward and asking, in earnest, “Are you alright? Truly?” 

She darkened and her eyes shined. Sansa pressed her lips together and Petyr noticed it took her a moment to compose herself before she answered. “Do you think I’m alright?” 

Reaching forward, Sansa took a hold of the gate and wrenched it open, Petyr’s hand hanging in the air for a split second before it fell limply at his side. She pushed past him, her shoulder catching his and lightly bumping him aside. 

“Sansa,” he called, turning on his heel, but she kept stomping her way to the house, her head dipped so she was staring at the ground. He felt stupid and closed the garden gate before following her. It was idiotic to ask a question he already knew the answer to. 

“Hey!” he called, catching up to her and taking a hold of her arm. They neared the worn side of the garage, the front porch of the house perhaps fifty feet away. The garage teetered on the very edge of the outcrop that Lysa’s little compound was nestled in and there was a large drop before the trees and valley continued below. He pulled her behind the garage, away from any potential prying eyes of the house. Lysa would be busy giving Robyn his…snack, but Petyr didn’t trust Royce. 

“That was a stupid question,” Petyr hissed, holding up his hands as Sansa shook herself free. Her eyes were shining in angry tears and she wiped at them with her arm. Petyr fished into his pocket for the spare handkerchief he had and handed it out to her, almost in truce. “Don’t go inside looking upset.” 

She took the handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “Why not?” 

“Little lesson for you, Sweetheart,” Petyr explained, looking her over. He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, “Never let anyone know what you’re feeling or what you’re thinking. It fools them into thinking they have you all figured out.” 

Petyr watched as Sansa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The redness of her lids would take a while to hide, but she had managed to pull herself together admiringly quickly. 

Sansa spoke and it wasn’t really for Petyr, she just needed to say the words. “I’m so angry here. It hasn’t even been a day and I feel like I want to scream. Lysa doesn’t care, she doesn’t care about me or our family. And she’s treating me like a rotten little kid.” The anger sparked between her words like sparks in a fire. 

“Look,” Littlefinger grumbled as he took a cautious step forward and met her eyes, level with his. He could smell her sweat from being out in the garden mixing with the soap from her bath and it made him hungry. He wasn’t used to going this long without any…attention, and it was gnawing at him. “I’m unhappy with being here just as much as you, but it’s necessary. Lysa owes me money and favors and we could really use those. So I’m just asking you, begging you, to play nice so we can get out of here.” 

She raised her eyebrows. “So ‘we’ can get out of here?” 

“You do want to come with me, right?” Littlefinger asked, “You’d want to go home?” 

“Yes,” Sansa admitted, swallowing. His gray-green eyes sparkled. 

“And do you think you can accomplish that on your own, sweetheart?” 

She didn’t give him the satisfaction of playing his game and being bashful. Instead, she answered flatly and without inflection. “No. I can’t.” 

His voice was low, eyes hooded, and for a moment Sansa forgot where she was because she was trying so hard to hear the words he murmured. The world closed around them. “So will you play nice for me?” 

Sansa watched Littlefinger, waiting to see if he would push his luck with the privacy of the barn and the whirlwind of her emotions. She could see the slight crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. She really didn’t trust him, but so far he had done nothing wrong. 

“Yes,” she finally answered and watched as the man smiled, his eyes crinkling even more. 

“That’s a good girl,” Petyr winked and brought his hand up for a quick squeeze of her chin between his thumb and the knuckle of index finger. The act was silly and even a little childish but Sansa nearly leaned into the touch. She was just as hungry as he was, but not for sex. She craved comfort. 

“Petyr?” came a shrill call from the house. Lysa was on the hunt. 

Sansa heard him groan before he bent down and picked up the basket. “Let’s go test our patience,” he quipped. Sansa went to hand him the handkerchief back, but he refused. “Keep it. You may need it again.” 

Sansa folded it and tucked it beneath the neckline of her dress. Baelish caught sight of the quick little movement and it made him selfishly pleased, knowing that something of his was pressed against the skin of Sansa’s chest. He led the way out from behind the shed and Lysa caught sight of them. He didn’t particularly like the expression on her face when she noticed the two of them were together. 

“Where were you?” She asked, crossing her arms. The first two buttons of her dress were undone. 

“Helping your niece pick beans for supper,” Littlefinger replied, holding out the basket. 

She warily accepted the answer, taking the basket from him. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Sansa watched closely, watched him stiffen. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and, for a moment, she thought he was going to blush. 

Lysa pulled away and glanced at Sansa. “Good, you kept your dress clean.” 

Sansa wanted to remind her aunt that she was not an invalid, but Petyr’s words filled her head. 

Will you play nice for me? 

That’s a good girl. 

“You can help Bernie clean the beans and get supper ready, Sansa,” Lysa instructed. She turned back to Petyr. “I want to show you something.” 

The smile didn’t meet Petyr’s eyes. He spoke through his teeth, “Oh yeah?” 

“Mm-hmmm,” she purred like a cat. “Royce is coming with the truck, then we’re going to the grove.” 

Sansa didn’t know what her aunt was talking about so she decided to go inside and find Bernie. If being a laborer for a few days helped her chances of getting home then she was willing to do the work. 

The bearded Royce rattled up the driveway in an old metal truck, the bed of which was just wood planks, open without a tailgate. Lysa scurried to the back and motioned for Petyr to come with. He allowed her to get handsy with him, feigning the use of his arm for support as she clambered up into the truck. He sat next to her and tried very hard to ignore how she cradled his hand in her strong and cold grip. Sansa watched them go, half in the door, and she gave a little smile to Petyr as her aunt looked out over the valley. His nose twitched. 

The truck rattled on for nearly twenty minutes, each turn Royce took made Petyr more and more lost. The flies were buzzing around them and the trees made it look darker than it actually was. Eventually, the trail narrowed so much that the branches and leaves were scraping along the truck. They rattled their way over a makeshift bridge, a bubbling trout brook flowing below. Finally, Lysa’s man slowed the truck down and stopped. They had found themselves in a small swell in the woods, overhead branches still blocking the space from the sun and sky. 

Petyr smelled rotten grain and he immediately knew what the Grove was. Giant metal barrels, curling pipes, and tended fires filled up the clearing and there was a half dozen men wandering around, most of them wearing overalls. Water was piped in from the creek and overall, Lysa had three working stills. 

“This is one of three groves I have,” Lysa said, proudly hopping down from the truck. She beamed at Petyr, “I provide shine from Chicago all the way to New York, and with the help of your loan I was able to expand.” 

“More stills?” Petyr asked. 

Lysa bit her lip, “Come here, honey.” She took his hand and led him across the clearing, the mash for the moonshine and the sweat from the men filling the air and turning it sour. Petyr couldn’t complain, it was the smell of business. They marched a few dozen feet through the woods, Lysa surefooted and confident. Then the woods stopped and an acre of tall, leafy plants swelled in the woods, looking like an oasis in the desert. 

Marijuana. Reefer, a whole crop of it, lush and green and just waiting to be dried and dispersed. 

“You thought the blacks had all the smoke,” Lysa spat cruelly. Petyr had almost been impressed by her until she started running her mouth about how successful she was. True, it was a sizeable operation, and it was impressive that it was being maintained by woman, but Petyr always thought it was bad practice to gloat with business. 

“Very impressive,” Petyr gushed. The green of the plants made him want his money and the smell of brewing alcohol made him want to get drunk and fuck something. 

Lysa slunk behind him and looped her arms around his waist. “You could stay here, help me run this place, think of how much money we could make.” 

So that’s why she had brought him here, to try and entice him with her operation. 

“It would be better than the old days, baby,” she pleaded, “We’d run these mountains.” 

There were nothing worth running in these mountains. They weren’t even the towering peaks of the Rockies. These were foothills crawling with hillbillies. No amount of weed or shine would ever convince Littlefinger into staying. 

“That’s a…tantalizing offer, dear,” Baelish softly said, gently untangling himself from Lysa’s arms. “But I have to get Sansa home.” 

Her face darkened. “You won’t stay with me, because of her?” Her tone was dangerously competitive. 

“It’s not because of her, Lysa, that’s unfair. I just need to-”

“Why are you defending a child?” Lysa snapped. This was all going wrong and Petyr knew it. 

He held up a hand, “She’s not a child.” 

Lysa clenched her jaw. “You’re fucking her. And she probably is letting you.” 

It was Petyr’s turn to be incredulous. “Excuse me?” 

“You weren’t helping her with the garden,” Lysa growled and her eyes glinted like obsidian. “You two were coming out from behind the garage. Her face was red. What were you two doing?” 

Anger filled him and he wished he could feel the sting of her face on his palm. “Her father is dead. She is emotional, I was comforting her.” 

Lysa jabbed a thumb to her chest. “My husband is dead, I need comforting.” 

Jon Arryn had died nearly a year ago, but Petyr wasn’t going to bring that up. 

“Well,” Lysa spat, venom dripping her words, “If you aren’t already fucking her I bet you want to.” 

Baelish swallowed and he thought of Bev’s mouth around his cock while he pictured bright red hair sprouting from her scalp. The guilt made him angry, explosive and mean, like a bull seeing red for the first time. Something hot and foul roiled in his belly, rearing its ugly head and sniffing the air for something to take, something to consume. 

Violently, Petyr took hold of Lysa and slammed her up against the trunk of a tree. He grabbed her skirts and she squealed, giggling loudly so her men would hear them. One of his hands gripped her throat and the other undid the fly on his trousers. The frustration, distaste, and want had grown unbearable for Baelish and he freed his cock, pressing the head against Lysa’s opening. 

He thrust hard and without concern for her comfort. She wanted it and knowing that he was giving the woman what she wanted made him even more hateful and he hoped the bark of the tree was scraping her back. 

Sansa was a reminder of everything he wanted but couldn’t have and Lysa was nothing but the sad image of what had but didn’t want, old and used up, manic and just as angry as he was. When she huffed a sigh from his thrust he thought of the wound on Sansa’s cheek and the blood on his thumb. Lysa grabbed at his hear, begged for him to kiss her, but he never did. 

Eyes closed, Petyr continued to thrust and he refused to look at Lysa’s contorted face. In the wake of his animalistic rutting, Petyr couldn’t help but imagine Sansa on the ground in the garden, him on top of her and ruining her dress. 

Petyr thought of Sansa begging him to kiss her, her petal lips pouted while he teased. Lysa wailed and he tried to drown out her unnecessary noise. Littlefinger thrusted one more time, hard, and finished violently. He thought he could feel Sansa’s smooth thighs on either side of his face, flooding him with warmth. 

He stood there, listening to Lysa pant while the excitement ebbed away. He stepped away from her and zipped up his trousers. Baelish didn’t say a word to her, but turned his back as she situated herself with her dress and her underclothes. Then he walked away from her, towards the truck. The men cast him sidelong glances as he passed, but they had the common decency not to speak to him. 

The man’s whole body itched like he had just rolled through a bramble patch. The release felt good in the moment, but now all he really wanted was a bath to wash every aspect of Lysa Arryn off of him. He didn’t know how much more he could take. 


	11. 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Major thanks to those of you who have left comments! And of course, thank you for reading! You guys are important to me and have brought me so much joy!  
> -J

Sansa was clearly separated from the rest of the group as they sat at Lysa’s worn oak table and chewed on their supper. Petyr found himself bristling at Lysa’s left side, avoiding her eye contact as she took bites of her food and tried to eat discreetly while covering her mouth coyly with her hand. Her free hand rested on his knee and he was unable to enjoy any of his meal when she squeezed lightly from time to time. Robyn picked at his mashed potatoes with a pouting bottom lip, stuck out while his nose wrinkled in distaste.

Sansa was seated next to her smaller cousin, pushing around her beans. Lysa hadn’t allowed her to sit next to Petyr and she was near the end of the table. She looked up and spotted Royce leaning against one of the kitchen counters next to an open window, a lumpy reefer joint pinched between his thumb and index finger. He would suck at the little cigarette, hold it in, and watch Bernie scrub out the pots and pans before he would blow it out the window. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed Sansa watching him, his eyes still sharp even though they were beginning to redden. Sansa turned back to her plate. 

“Eat your food, dear,” Lysa instructed, making sure that her niece looked up and met her eyes. There was nothing familial about her request. “I worked hard on that.” 

She hadn’t and the false sense of burden made Sansa even less hungry. 

“I am still rather tired… may I be excused to bed?” Sansa asked. She had set down her fork and placed her hands in her lap. She looked up at the hardened face of her aunt. Petyr was watching her closely, his chin dipped. He, too, had a full plate of food. 

Lysa’s jaw set. “If she doesn’t eat, do I have to? I don’t like meatloaf.” Robyn poked at his plate, the metal tines of his fork scraping against the porcelain and making them all wince. 

Petyr felt Lysa’s hand tighten around his knee and it felt like an unpleasant rash. She was angry. “If you are hungry later, I better not see you in my kitchen. If you choose to be this ungrateful then you can starve until the morning.” 

Sansa’s jaw set and Petyr silently pleaded for her to comply quietly. 

“Just eat your food like a good girl,” he pleaded in his own head. 

Royce had now turned to watch the unfolding conflict around the dinner table

“I’m not ungrateful,” Sansa finally snapped, taking enough of her aunt’s undeserved chill. “I’ve never been ungrateful and how dare you call me that. You’re the one that sits up here in your mountain, shutting out your family and only caring about your horrible son.” 

The cock to Lysa’s head reminded Petyr of a hawk looking at an injured mouse. “What did you say to me?” 

Thudding footsteps as her hired man approached the table to intervene. Petyr beat him to it, leaning forward and extending out his arms and acting as a barrier to the two. “Hey, hey now,” he stuttered, “let’s not fight.” 

Lysa turned her frigid eyes on him and he felt the crosshairs etched on his forehead. “Don’t defend that little brat.” 

“Lysa, please, honey…” Littlefinger lowered his voice to reel her back in. “She’s just a child, she’s had a grueling few days. She’s grieving. Sansa doesn’t mean any of this, do you?” he turned to her, glaring at her. Sansa noticed how tightly his jaw was clenched and how pale he looked. His moustache twitched. He turned back, “And besides, you wouldn’t want to ruin the good evening we’ve been having, would you?” 

Her chest heaved with defensive anger. Robyn was unperplexed, still picking at his food like a dumb little boy. “I don’t like meatloaf,” he said to nobody in particular. 

Petyr decided to pretend. He leaned over and kissed Lysa’s temple and he ignored the bitterness of her skin on his lips. “I’ll handle this,” he murmured. “Your boy is hungry, take care of him.” 

He hoped that whatever tone he had could be mistaken as being loving because he only really felt disgust. With any luck, she would convince herself that Petyr was gushing over her talent of nurturing her son. Surely, he realized that she was a good mother and he would be excited to become part of their family once Sansa was gone. 

Lysa sipped at some water before Sansa watched in shock as she unbuttoned the top few clasps of her dress. Robyn huffed as she extended her thin arms out to him. “But I want cookies, sweets.” 

“You can have some, baby, when you finish eating.” 

Sansa’s eyes widened in horror as she watched her aunt free her breast and Robyn latched on to it, much too old to be feeding. He looked like a giant on Lysa’s lap. Standing and backing away from the table, she felt a hand encircle around her arm and Petyr’s voice close to her ear, his breath smelling like peppermint and not Lysa’s rotten food. 

“Let’s go.” 

She let him pull her away from the unsettling scene in front of her and lead her to the base of the stairs. He told her to wait while he went back to the kitchen for just a moment, but she didn’t. Climbing the stairs alone and too quickly, she tripped on the hem of her borrowed dress and bruised her knee. Frustration bloomed within her and she stifled a scream, both from pain and the despair she felt being in this awful house. Not knowing what else to do and needing an immediate release from the fire that was building inside of her, Sansa reached up and thudded her own fist against the side of her head. Three sharp hits, not exactly a full closed fist, but enough to cause some pain to flower in the wake of the strikes like ink dripping into water. Tears leaked from her clenched eyes. 

Roughly, her arm was grabbed again, and it was Petyr, his eyes angry, rageful even. A loaf of bread was cradled in his other arm. “Get to your room,” he hissed, bending over and speaking through his teeth. “Now.” 

She obeyed, confused by his sudden anger and he followed her. She went straight to her little bed, facing it as she tried to kick off her shoes. There were too many buttons so she sat down on the mattress. Her temple thudded. 

Petyr didn’t fully shut the door, left it open a crack, before he whirled on her and gripped both of her arms, shaking her slightly and standing over her. The bread had fallen forgotten on the floor. “What the fuck was that?” he growled

More tears started to brim her eyes and she was embarrassed by the fact that she was crying. “I couldn’t take it anymore!” 

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t fucking yell. And I don’t mean dinner, what the hell were you doing on the stairs?” 

His skin was warm on hers, dry and soft, not roughed by the years of hard work like her fathers. She looked up at him, unused to seeing him appear this tall. Littlefinger watched her eyes widen like blue dinnerplates. She hadn’t known that he had seen her hit herself. 

“I,” she muttered past his finger, “I don’t know. I’ve only done that once before. It just happens.” 

She watched his chest heave with a breath. “Why?” 

Sansa looked away and he looked at where the red of her hair sprouted from her pale scalp. “I don’t know,” her voice was very quiet, hard to hear when he wasn’t watching her lips. “I just felt like it was the only thing I could do, either that or scream, and I couldn’t scream. I was going to explode.” 

Petyr found himself kneeling in front of her and he allowed himself to place his hands on her knees, his thumbs rubbing without even thinking about it. She stiffened, but didn’t pull away. Her chin was dipped in order to meet his eyes and he found himself blinking past the shocking blue of her iris’s. 

For the first time since he had arrived here, Petyr felt hungry. 

“I’m never going to see you do that again, am I, sweetheart?” 

Sansa huffed and he wondered if the embarrassment she felt was what made her act petulant. She closed her eyes and Petyr watched with a sinking heart as her face contorted with pain and grief, tears leaking past her lashes like dewdrops on petals. She shook with sadness and tried to soften her sobs, but she couldn’t. Littlefinger witnessed as everything hit the poor girl at once, and like a faulty dam…as soon as there was one leak, everything came crashing out. 

“I held him,” she whispered through painful sobs, “my Papa. My dress got dirty.” 

Petyr stood again and looked at her bowed head. “I know, honey,” he murmured as he reached out and placed a hand on the back of her neck, his palm pressed against her soft baby hairs. He pulled her to him and was grateful when she let him, her face turning and her cheek pressing against his abdomen. Petyr took his other hand and stroked her soft hair and he imagined it leaving blood red streaks on his skin. He remembered laying awake at night as a boy and praying to just touch one strand of Cat’s auburn locks, but now they looked like dead straw in his memory as he gave into the new sensations of Sansa’s features. Cat had only cared about strength in the men around her. Sansa needed to care about the strength she had. Dependence was what turned people sour. 

But that lesson could come later. Petyr allowed her to soak his shirt with her tears and he lost himself in the intoxicating feeling of being needed, wanted. None of his girls, not even Bev, would ever make him feel this good Her arms wrapped around his waist and he allowed himself to be pulled closer to her, the fabric of her dress pulled tight as she widened her legs to bring him near. 

Truthfully, he was unfamiliar with what to do next or what to say. His mother had never really been the nurturing type and he had a long life of rejection. Littlefinger had been bristly to his girls when they were presented with problems like a rough customer or skipped bleeding, always pawning them off on the older women that he employed. Or he just fired them, that was easier still. But this, this was something else. This was flooding his senses and electrifying him and he felt high, like she was filling his lungs with her need. 

Petyr brought both of his hands up beneath her chin, tipping her upwards. Her nose was splotched red, and she still hiccupped with tears, but he didn’t care. Baelish bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead, his thumbs trailing along her jaw as he did so. She didn’t know it, but he was also breaking. Lysa repulsed him and his city was probably in shambles. He had worked so hard for everything he had and after a lifetime of failures, he had finally managed to scramble into something good…and now it was gone. Petyr had filled his life with false relationships, women that liked his town and his wallet. He craved the intimacy of another person just as much as Sansa did, and if he wasn’t careful, he would surely break. 

“I know I’m not the best friend to have,” he murmured against her skin. He marveled at how soft it felt, like the inner, hidden petals of a rose. “but I’m going to do everything I can to help you.” He gave another kiss as the punctuation of his statement. There was a strong gravitational pull to her lips, and he could image how they would melt against his, but he tried his best to resist. Instead, Petyr gave her a peck to her cheek and tasted the salt of her dried tears. 

Her arms slid away from his waist and he knelt down to unfasten Sansa’s shoes for her. He helped her out of them and set them on the floor next to the bed. He was so close to her and she was so young and healthy, warm like the summer sun. Suddenly, Petyr’s hunger returned, and she watched him closely, wiping at her eyes. She was unreadable. He inched closer, his hands lingering on her calves after removing her shoes. Petyr Baelish wanted to push her back down on the mattress, lift her skirt and taste her, replace all the sadness in her heart with pleasure between her legs, but that wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right. Petyr wanted her to kiss him first. 

Their tension snapped violently at the sound of a shriek. 

“What are you doing?!” 

The two of them whirled to face the door. Lysa was standing here, the door open and her face turning red with disbelief and rage. 


	12. 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence warning! Thank you guys, as always! -J

Sansa could feel the fading ache in her calves from when Petyr clamped them in his grip in surprise, his fingers digging into the muscle without even realizing it. He was using her to leap up, squeezing, pulling, moving them to her knees before eventually pulling himself up and chasing after Lysa, who had turned and bolted back out into the hallway.

“Stay here,” Petyr barked as he vaulted towards the door and Sansa heeded his command, sitting and staring wide-eyed after him. 

In two long strides, Petyr was out of the room and across the hallway, crashing through Lysa’s door with too much force. She was whirling around, a little black pistol clenched in her tight fist, and she fired off a shot with a yelp. The bullet missed him clearly and thudded into the wall, thankfully too small a caliber to burst through the other side of the plaster. Regardless, Littlefinger dodged and hunkered down low before rushing forward and tackling her hard at the waist. With a scream, Lysa fell backward, cracking the side of her head on the cedar hope chest at the foot of her bed. 

Arms flailing, she cursed at him, spitting foul accusations and words through her thin lips and bared teeth. She looked like a dehydrated mummy, skin stretched tight in rage and eyes wild. The little pocket pistol had jammed, and she was struggling to fire off another round, but the mechanics weren’t cooperating for her. Petyr wrestled his way on top, pinning her down and reaching for the gun with both hands and wrenching her fingers free from the trigger and stock. Thumping footsteps in the hallway, yelling through the ringing. 

Royce had burst in and before Petyr had time to think, he cleared the gun, spitting out the unfired and jammed round, and whirled around with an outstretched hand. The little pistol bucked with the shot and Royce fell back, clutching at his leg and hollering to beat hell. Struggling with a thrashing Lysa below him, Baelish managed to fire off two more small shots, both thudding into Royce’s chest. He slumped over, gurgling. 

With ringing ears and a snarl on his face, Petyr then turned to Lysa. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

“Get out!” she screeched instead, refusing to answer him. Truthfully, she probably didn’t have and answer for him to even consider. The mania in her eyes and the sourness of her sweet reeked of sickness and he knew her brain was finally clouded over past the point of reason. “Take that whore with you.” 

Anger flared like a match to a puddle of shine. “That’s your fucking niece, Lysa. Does family mean nothing to you?” 

“You’ve always liked her better than me,” the older woman hissed, straining against the grip he had on her wrists. “Always. Even though I pined over you, gave you everything you’ve ever wanted. Let you use your cock whenever you wished, even though you would never marry me. You said you would.” 

“Boys lie, honey,” Petyr growled. “Everyone lies.” 

“You don’t even like that girl in there,” she spat, grasping at straws now. There was blood at her temple and a welt starting to form from where she hit the side of the cedar chest. “She just reminds you of what you were never good enough to have. And maybe you think that saving her will convince her to suck your dick maybe once or twice before she realizes that you’re nothing but a sneak and a liar, just like my sister did.” 

“Shut up,” he barked. 

“When the Lannister’s find out where you are, she’s as good as dead anyway, I’ll make sure of that! Fuck family, fuck you!” Venom was leaking from her mouth, coating her words and making them diseased and sick. All he felt was anger and he lunged forward, throwing the gun aside and moving to close his hands around her wiry neck. 

Suddenly, Lysa jerked upwards and her forehead cracked forcefully against the bridge of his nose. Pain shot through his face and up into his temple and it radiated for a few moments before he felt the warmth start to flow. He tasted his own coppery blood on his lips, and he stumbled off, his eyes stinging with tears. 

“Fuck!” he screamed. 

Lysa scrambled away, trying to claw her way to the dresser near where he dropped the gun. She tried pull herself up. He reached out to her, grabbing a thin ankle, bony and hard unlike the warmth of Sansa’s leg he had held moments before. She was screaming now, shrieking for her son, for anyone to help her. Royce had stopped gurgling and sat lifeless in response. 

Littlefinger yanked hard on the woman’s ankle and she thudded back down to the ground. Sill, she reached for the little pistol. He got on top of her and shamelessly punched her with a closed fist to the back of the head, trying to shut her up. Her voice was muffled into the rug. She thrashed like a swimmer out of water, every muscle in her body strained. He managed to reach it first, holding her head down with one hand while he reached out with the other. 

The threat had been made and Baelish knew he had no choice. If left alive her first call would surely be to the Lannister’s…if she decided not to pull the gun on Sansa herself. He gripped the little gun, racked it, and held the muzzle right to the back of Lysa’s head, her brown hair wild and tousled from the struggle. She kicked beneath him. Clenching his jaw and refusing to close his eyes, Baelish pulled the trigger. 

A thud from the bullet streaking right through her head and burying itself into the floor…and then she was still. No twitches, just stillness. Petyr panted as he lowered the gun. Blood was gushing down his nose and he panted with an open mouth, unable to breathe, and he felt like he was drowning. He stumbled over Lysa’s body as he tried to get up and he tipped his head back and pinched the sore bridge of his nose. He didn’t think it was broke, but he would definitely be having a pair of shiners after a while. 

“Sansa,” he groaned, not knowing what else to say. 

He heard the muffled yelp before he saw her, behind him at the door. Turning he held the gun out to her. “Take it,” 

Her eyes flitted to Royce and then the prone and still form of her aunt, a deep red pool leaking out around her head like a wine -colored halo. She took it all in for a few seconds and Petyr felt his stomach drop. Would she run? Would she shoot him? 

Setting her jaw, Sansa stepped forward and took the weapon from his hand. She didn’t know what to really do with it so she tucked it into the front of her dress against her chest. It looked lumpy and out of place, but he appreciated her effort. 

“Are you ok?” they both asked each other. Petyr’s voice was cloying and muffled from his injury. 

“Yes,” she said, “I heard everything happening. You told me to stay in the room.” 

Her obedience dulled his pain. He looked at Lysa. “I’m sorry,” he offered and it sounded lame, like an injured duck trying to putter across the water. 

Sansa was looking at Lysa too. For a moment, she looked as if she would cry, but Petyr watched out of hazed eyes as it disappeared and she tried to resolve herself. The blue eyes were clear and strong when they looked back at him. She stepped forward and ripped at the hem of her dress, the gun threatening to fall out of it with the movement. She held out the scrap to Littlefinger. 

“Was it necessary?” she asked as he unceremoniously ripped it in half again and started to plug his nose. 

With his nostrils finally filled with cotton and the bleeding stopped, he nodded. “Yes.” She sucked in a breath. “Ok.” 

“I need to find her money,” Littlefinger said, breaking the moment of silence between them. “We need to get out of here. People will be coming around soon if Robyn hadn’t already run to the woods to find someone.” 

“Check her hope chest,” Sansa offered, pointing. She didn’t move further into the room. “My mom used to hide cash in hers.” 

Petyr lifted the lid, a little red stain on the corner from where Lysa struck her head. It was filled to the brim with frilly lingerie and step-ins. His stomach churned with the over-perfumed scent of it all, but he still rooted around like a terrier sniffing out a rat. By the grace of God, there was a thick leather document pouch. He opened it and found it fat with bills and bonds. 

“Good girl,” he muttered thickly to Sansa. 

He grabbed her arm and pulled her to the wardrobe. “Load up with some clothes, we’re leaving in two minutes, got it?” 

Sansa nodded and set to work, finding a suitcase and stuffing it unceremoniously with clothes. He dug dropped to his knees and looked under her bed. A short and stubby shotgun was discovered, its barrel doubled as a side-by-side and sawed off in order to be more discreet. There were several boxes of birdshot there as well, paper hulls and 12 gauge. The shells had been kept dry and were useable, he scooped them up. 

They raided the kitchen, stealing loaves of bread, crocks of butter, cheese, salami, and three jugs of Lysa’s pride and joy, shine. Petyr even found a small burlap sack of reefer, probably Royce’s, and he swiped that up as well. From the shed Petyr stole two metal cans of gasoline. The two of them scrambled out to the truck and loaded it up with their ill-gotten goods. 

Petyr’s ears were still ringing as they spun their tires out on the gravel of her road and peeled out onto the mountain roads, the sun already below the horizon. The dusk and the trees swallowed them up in no time and neither of them thought about Lysa’s body waiting to be discovered in that big, empty house. 


	13. 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy! Let's flesh out some of that tension....more to come I promise   
> \- J

Sansa didn’t sleep. The fear kept her awake for the first few hours, on the lookout for another truck fueled on vengeance barreling down the road after them, but thankfully they wound their way through the forests alone. Sansa felt a sliver of guilt, pricking her here and there like a rusty needle, however it wasn’t nearly as strong as she had been expecting it to be.

It had taken a long time for Petyr to finally speak, and when he did it had been so quiet that she had barely heard it over the rattle of the truck. 

“She was going to kill us.” 

Sansa’s head cocked towards him and she glanced at the stunted shotgun that was sitting on the seat between them. 

Would she have, though? Would Lysa really have pulled up the gun and fired it, killing her niece and her obsession? Her bluff would never be called, and Sansa supposed it would rot there up in that room with her. They didn’t have time to gamble with what-ifs and it was far too late to even think about it now. 

Sansa turned and looked at him and he looked a far cry away from the manicured and stylish man she had seen back in Atlantic City. Blood was dried and caked to his face and his nostrils were still plugged with the scraps from her dress. Deep purple bruises were already cradling his eyes in the pale moonlight and his voice sounded thick like he was ill. 

“I know.” 

Petyr sighed, a ragged sound that seemed as if it had sticky little dots all over it and pulled at his lungs as it moved up and out of his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t specify what he was sorry about, but at this point it just felt good for him to say. His hands hurt as they gripped the thin steering wheel and he convinced himself that he could smell Lysa’s blood on his shirt, stinging at his already damaged nose like ammonia. 

“You should take those plugs out, I’m sure you’ve stopped bleeding,” Sansa said softly and she reached out to touch his arm, making sure she had been heard. Littlefinger looked ragged and tired, beat down with shoulders slumped. It was safe to assume that the only thing that was really keeping him awake was the adrenaline of what he had done back in the lodge. She wondered how it had felt, but then decided she didn’t envy him. 

Petyr reached up from the steering wheel and pulled on the bloody scraps. There was discomfort, then relief as the plugs were removed and tossed on the ground. All he could smell was old blood and it made his skin crawl and all Petyr could feel was the need to push out of it like a lizard that had grown too big. 

The two pushed on, plugging their way in a direction that they were praying was North or West. They could deal with either one in the morning. 

By the grace of God, the sun rose behind them, which was all the reassurance they needed. The woods had started to thin and they had trundled their way through towns and even small cities, refusing to stop and filling up on sideroads with the gasoline they had stolen. Eventually, as the morning sun gained its confidence up in the sky, they found themselves in another wooded area, passing a sign that said: Missouri Welcomes You! 

Missouri…Gateway to the West. Tyrells, the old money of the agriculture powerhouses, had relocated to St. Louis years ago…once they had finally become successful enough to leave the fields of Iowa. For the last few years, they had convinced themselves that they were neutral in the war of prohibition, turning their nose up at the businesses of Chicago or New York. All the while ignoring how filthy their hands grew by the discreet selling of their corn and grain by the lower families that squirmed under their thumbs, padding their already insulated pockets. 

The only good thing about the Tyrells was that they weren’t fond of the Lannisters. Truthfully, they didn’t think much of the Starks, however with their agricultural influences creeping up into the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, one would think that if given the choice they would side with the North over the glistening arrogance of New York. 

They could relax for now, but only by a fraction. The truck was rattling up the road and they came to a bridge with a worn wooden sign hanging over the beam. St. Francis River. Dried blood itched at his skin and Petyr wanted to get clean. He pulled over and shut the truck off, the engine shuddering in gratitude. Sansa looked out the window. 

“Grab some clothes,” he muttered wearily, grabbing the shotgun and shoving open the door, “Might be a while before we can get cleaned up and we might as well take advantage now.” His legs ached and his eyes burned, but he was thankful to finally stretch. He retrieved a pair of trousers and a shirt and slung them over his shoulder. 

Sansa did as told and got out as well, circling back to the bed and digging in the hastily grabbed clothes they had lifted from Lysa’s home. She also grabbed a scratchy looking burlap sack that she figured she would use as a towel. Thinking of the copper claw-foot tub that Sansa had left behind in Chicago, she turned and faced the river. The waters were flowing lazily, far less than crystal clear, and below the bridge was a small embankment and sandy looking beach. It was something, she felt grimy, and not just on her skin. 

Petyr picked his way cautiously down the ditch, holding onto branches here and there before finally quickly trotting the rest of the way down, the grass eventually fiving way to the shifting sands and small rocks of the riverbank. He turned and looked back up at the road, watching Sansa closely. She was standing near the truck, looking down. His breath hitched for a moment and he imagined how easily she would be able to slip inside the truck and drive away, leaving him to scramble back up the bank. 

The shotgun felt heavy in Littlefinger’s hands, the fear weighing it down like lead. 

Then, sucking in the relief greedily with his breath, he watched Sansa look down and carefully make her way down the bank. As he blinked stupidly at her, Petyr realized that, even if she did make a run for it, he would have never been able to pull the trigger in her wake. He would rather watch her go. 

Sansa stood at his side, looking out over the river. It wasn’t necessarily tropical out, but the two of them had their fingers crossed that there had been just enough sunlight to warm the water enough for a quick dip. Without too much more hesitation, Petyr walked towards the water, reaching up with his hands and starting to unbutton his shirt. He pulled it off and Sansa stared at his bared back as he plopped down on the bank and started to tug at his shoes. She caught sight of a blemish behind his left shoulder, a puckered little scar that looked like he had been stamped by a star. 

Petyr looked over his shoulder and watched her with his bruised eyes. “What?” he asked. 

“Were you shot?” 

He shrugged, turning back around. “Your uncle did that.” 

“How old were you?” 

“Sixteen?” he suggested casually, wanting Sansa to believe that he was unbothered by it. “Maybe even younger. I thought we already established my tormented little past with your family.” He pulled off his boot and sock and set to work on the other foot, his toes resting on the cool and granular sand. 

“Did you deserve it?” 

Petyr paused, his fingers still pinching the shoelaces. His voice wasn’t sweet. “No, honey…I don’t reckon I did.” 

Soft crunching footsteps were the answer to his bristling words. Littlefinger looked back around and craned his neck. Sansa was walking away from him, towards a series of bushes to the right of his spot. She wanted privacy, and he would respect that. Besides…he was between her and the truck. 

He finished stripping down and made his way to the water. The bank was gravely, hurting the soles of his feet, and he found himself falling into the river faster than he had hoped. Deciding to get it over with, Petyr dunked his head below the surface. 

The water was cold, almost unbearably so, but it washed over his sore face with an icy numbness that he welcomed. Littlefinger found himself gently pulled by the current, not strong enough to sweep him away, and he let it drag him until he felt sand and silt beneath his toes. He dug into the river bottom and let the water work into his muscles and pull out the sour adrenaline that had wound him so achingly tight. Petyr remembered doing this as a boy back in the murky waters of their swimming hole, staying hidden in the water until his lungs burned, then coming up to the surface and peaking to see if the other children noticed he was gone. 

They never had. 

Petyr felt the cathartic itch begin in his lungs and he teased himself below the water, thinking about how good the oxygen would feel once he rose back to the surface. The longer he waited, the better the air would taste. For a man that had surrounded himself with nothing but pleasures, it was nice to be reminded of when he was a boy who had nothing but simple sensations. 

Finally giving in to his body’s surge for oxygen, Petyr floated up to the surface, his eyes and nose just barely above the water. He sucked in the air through his damaged nostrils and he felt the coolness of the water soothe the bruising of his eyes. With his feet settled on the river bottom he could reach up and rub the blood off his face. He felt the bristles of his jaws and cheeks on his palms. 

He saw red when he opened his eyes, floating on the surface of the water like a sheet of satin, strands unraveled and floating there. But it wasn’t a sheet, it was moving, and before she even broke the surface, Petyr knew it was Sansa. The water had carried him further than what he had thought. What he had originally thought were bushes were actually the branches of a tree and it extended out further into the water, the large trunk slowly decaying in the water. Petyr felt as if he was being pulled by a magnet and he drifted over. 

Pale skin and fluid lines, looking even longer and smoother in the water, drew his eyes towards her, holding him there like he was hypnotized. Littlefinger felt sneaky and boyish, the knowledge that he was looking at something he wasn’t supposed to acting as a fuel for the fire. Petyr had never been much into voyeurism, but as Sansa swam closer to shore and stood up in the water, exposing her bare back to him, he felt the jolt of excitement stab through his belly and travel lower to his groin. He felt hungry as he watched the wet strands of her hair press flat against her ivory back like a sheet soaked in dye. She had two small dimples in the small of her back and he could feel her wet skin on his lips. 

Sansa turned and from his hiding spot he gazed at her form as she rubbed her face with her slender hands. She was lean like a dancer, toned in ways that demanded awe and respect from men, much different than the simple admiration his pie-faced girls were rewarded with back at his brothel. The curve of her breasts met with one fluid line that curved down below at her hips, one long brushstroke from a calligrapher. 

Petyr Baelish realized that he had never seen anything like her in all his years, both in business and in life. He couldn’t explain the level of pull he felt towards the woman floating in the murky waters in the middle of a Missouri woods, but it was almost as if he was looking at a spirit or a deity. Something a human wasn’t supposed to look at directly. There was no comparison to her mother, no comparison to her aunt. Sansa Stark was her own woman, possessing her own body and while she was indeed influenced by her genetics, it was obvious that she had been something that God had made from His own craving for originality. Petyr had been so close to her in that bedroom…so close to those hips and those legs and what was hidden in between. 

Littlefinger didn’t want to fuck her. He wanted to capture her like a greedy boy coveting a shiny coin, to hold her forever and consume her body whole so she would never leave and he would never have to share. 

Beneath the water he had been fully aroused as he watched her wade towards the shore. Like he had done dozens of times in his childhood, Littlefinger slunk away, swimming beneath the surface of the water so he wouldn’t be seen. The shore came fast, he felt it on his palms, and he lay there in the cold water as he thought of many distasteful things in order to try and conceal his erection. When he finally got out of the water, he stood there dripping and looking at his clothes. He had nothing to dry himself with. Air chilled Petyr’s skin and he loved it, loved the discomfort and the electricity he felt. 

There was a subtle sound of a throat clearing before he felt a scratchy material brush against his back. Littlefinger flinched and then turned, his hands covering himself. Sansa was standing there, her hair wet and coiled on top of her head and a wrinkled, yet clean, dress hiding what he had just feasted upon. A burlap sack was at his feet. Sansa turned away from him, gracing him with her back and he quickly dried himself as best as he could with the fabric, the strands from the burlap scratching and itching at his skin. He was still damp as he pulled on his clean clothes. He picked up the shotgun that had been left on the shore. 

“Ok,” he muttered as he rubbed the burlap on his hair to try and get some of the river water off of his head, “I’m decent.” 

Sansa turned back around and stared at him without saying anything and the silence that hung between them warned him that she knew something he didn’t. 

With self-control that had been honed over the years like a fine blade, Petyr held her gaze…even though all he wanted to do was stare at her body again. Petyr’s mouth opened but before he could speak, she cut him off. 

“Did you see me?” She asked, reaching up and unraveling her damp hair. She wrung it out like a rag and Littlefinger half expected to see the water drip crimson from her tresses as if she had been swimming in the Nile. 

It lilted from her mouth suspiciously like it had been a trick question and Petyr regarded her with his eyes cradled in bruises, sizing her up. Had he been spotted? There was no way…she hadn’t even looked in his direction and the tree provided more than enough cover. 

The silence was growing uncomfortable, yet Sansa didn’t appear angry…could it be possible that she had wanted to him to see her nakedness? Petyr knew that she hadn’t pulled away from him during that blissful moment in her room before the blood and the screams. His hands on her calves, destined to move upward….

Petyr knew that if he lied to her he would be disappointed. 

“Yes,” the word was said with confidence and the truth excited him. Littlefinger liked that Sansa now knew he had watched her and as the revelation hung out in the open, the want returned, whispering and famished. He wanted to reach to her, stride over and pull her to him like he did with so many of his girls, but he controlled it. Back in the lodge Littlefinger promised himself that Sansa Stark would be the one to kiss him first…if she wanted. 

Sansa watched him closely, her eyes moving over his bruised and stubbled face. Petyr didn’t cower, nor did he avert his eyes and look guilty or sheepish. “You’re beautiful. More beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.” 

Baelish’s voice reached her low and humming, almost a growl from his lips. She had never been spoken to by a man in that way before and it itched the back of her neck, turning her skin to gooseflesh. Sansa had expected to feel angry, or exposed and embarrassed…but she instead felt a rush of what could only be described as excitement. 

Petyr hadn’t blinked, the dark purple around his eyes making his iris’s shine with a hardness that was almost overwhelming. With his growing stubble and the gray disheveled at his temples he looked like a desperate man, hungry and cunning. Sansa found herself looking to the ground first. Birds chirped overhead and the river flowed behind the two, the truck waiting up on the bank. 

“Are you upset?” Petyr asked, wanting her to look at him again. 

“No,” she murmured. And it was the truth. “But I know I should be.” 

Petyr took a cautious step forward as he watched a light blush start to creep up her neck. She pushed past him and began to make her way back to the embankment, tossing her old clothes into the woods. She didn’t want anything to remind her of yesterday. A subtle little smile played at his lips and he walked after her, excited at the prospect of being close in the cab of the truck. 

Sansa hadn’t rejected him. Her words had been cautious, perhaps even a warning, but Petyr couldn’t be sure if it was a warning for him or for herself. 


	14. 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, enjoy! Thank you for the comments, they are the best part of my day!

Blood had gotten on Tywin Lannister’s floor and he was not happy about it. The straight-backed and shark-eyed man clutched the base of his pool cue with bejeweled fingers, the shattered shaft looking like a pitchfork. A young man by the name of Wade Fray lay in a crumpled heap at Tywin’s feet with blood pooling out of his broken nose. The second half of Tywin’s cue had clattered to the floor after it had been cracked against the young man’s skull.

Walder had let out a ragged yelp, the only think he could really do at this point, and he watched as Lannister dropped the broken cue and sidestepped to avoid his son’s blood from getting on those fancy Italian soles. 

“I can’t help but think that this was all your fault,” Tywin muttered. His pale and watery eyes bored into Walder’s. Old man Frey’s crooked jaw was set, his beady little eyes narrowed as they darted from Tywin to his battered son. 

“You asked for my hotel,” he spat, “It’s not my fault they got the slip on you.” “And how do you think that happened, Frey?” Tywin asked, leaning back and holding out his arms out dramatically. He carelessly tossed the base of the pool cue to the ground. A bitter, humorless bark of a chuckle escaped his thin lips and his molars clicked together in anger. “Sure, I got to get rid of Ned Stark, but that rotten boy of his was nowhere to be found. You’ve got quite the history with Tully, who is coincidentally married to Ned himself. So, tell me…how did his boys know to climb the fire escape?” 

Walder’s mouth hung slack for a moment before he started to hiss back defensively. “I don’t know why you’re taking this out on us, your kid came to me the day of. I had no idea any of that was going to happen. What about that sneaky looking fella? That one that used to hang around the Tully girls back in the day?” 

He was bristled up in his seat, like an old dog defending the bone he just found, sick but refusing to give up. Scanning the room again, he spotted Jaime Lannister reclined in one of Tywin’s plush velvet seats, his arm wrapped up in a sling. He looked bored. The anger provided another possibility that Walder hoped would get him out of the hotseat. 

“Ask your boy there, he might know what went wrong. Looks like he got out pretty good compared to the others,” he barked and Walder knew his words were a mistake before they even left his lips. 

There was a very long pause around the room and the dust floated in the daylight. Walder’s son grunted on the ground, moaning incoherently from the pool cue’s blow. Jaime hadn’t even blinked. But his father smiled. 

“Get him up,” Tywin ordered, his voice never raising up into a yell. 

A couple burly men stooped and collected Frey. Arms outstretched like a broken marionette, Wade was hoisted up, drool dripping stupidly from his bottom lip. 

Tywin stepped over to Walder’s seat at the foot of his table. Snapping his fingers in a sharp little click, Lannister ordered his two men to kick out the chair all the way across the table and bend Wade over, his messy cheek pressed against the lacquer of the wood. 

“Gregor,” Tywin said coolly, “Shoot him.” 

“Wait just a second,” Walder hollered, trying to stand up. His old knees refused, even in the wake of his son’s doom, and he was only able to lean forward slightly in his seat. “Wade’s running things for me. What if I pay you?” 

Gregor held the gun up, bullet in the chamber and barrel pressed against Wade Frey’s temple. Tywin held up a hand in jest, momentarily stopping Gregor from pulling the trigger. He savored the nonverbal command, watched as the old man’s eyes grew even more watery. This was what real power felt like, commanding in silence. Tywin Lannister wanted Walder Frey to stare directly at him and he would burn the old man’s retinas as if he was the blinding sun itself. 

“You and I both know that I have much more of a need for favors than money, friend,” Tywin purred, clapping the man’s shoulder while Frey trembled looking at Wade’s bloody face pressed against the table. “Are you familiar with the Babylonians? Hammurabi?” 

Walder shook his turkey head. “No.” 

“It’s quite a black and white way to think about justice,” Tywin answered, standing fully behind him and clenching both of Frey’s shoulders in his strong, pale hands. The grip was painful on Walder’s old joints and hunched back, he felt as if Tywin would rip him in two. “It’s a way of law and order that I think would work very well for people like you and I.” 

He nodded and Gregor racked the pistol in a series of lethal and metallic clicks. 

“You should be seeking revenge on those Starks, shouldn’t you?” Tywin mused, staring straight ahead. “After all, they killed your boy…didn’t they?” 

“You’re a fucking bastard,” Frey growled, straining against Lannister’s hands. 

Tywin ignored him. “What can I say, Frey…I just love my boy more than you love yours. I know that if my boy was killed because of the Starks, like yours will be, I would be seeking revenge. Is that what you’re going to be doing?” 

Walder shook in his seat. “I don’t want any more involvement. You ruined my hotel.” 

“He’s worried about the hotel,” Jaime drawled from his seat. “That tacky little drab hotel.” 

Wade groaned, his shirt crumpled and loose around his suspenders. Walder winced. He had never been the most affectionate of fathers, but he knew a good employee and a good heir when he saw one and Wade had been his best bet for some sort of success in the future. Tywin was just going to pluck him away like the head of an old dandelion. He knew what Lannister wanted to hear and the only way he would be able to get his old and skinny ass out of there was to make a sacrifice. 

“You want me to kill Robb Stark?” Walder growled, “how and when?” 

Tywin reached forward and patted the man’s cheek with a little too much force before he came back out from behind him. “Not just Robb,” he said, removing his cufflinks and stuffing them into his pocket before rolling his sleeves. “Any Stark you or your family or your men ever see again, whether its in Philly or you’re eating a fucking Polish sausage in Chicago, you are going to kill them. I don’t care if it’s a kid, I don’t care if it’s a woman. You are going to kill them, or you are going to tell me where they are so I can kill them.” 

Walder nodded, jutting his jaw down into his chest so he wouldn’t see Tywin’s smile. 

“Good, I’m glad we have a deal.” He held out his hands, ruby and gold rings glinting. Frey’s eyes darted from Tywin to his eldest son, already fairly close to death from his pool cue beating. 

With a mouth that felt like sandpaper, Walder took Tywin’s in his and shook deliberately. 

Tywin turned to leave, but before he did, he looked back at the old man. “Oh, and on second thought, I will take some of your money. I’m going to need to buy a new table. You can leave the check with Gregor when we’re through here.” 

He then held his hand up, fingers poised, and let out a clear and concise snap. Walder’s ears were already ringing from the gunshot before Tywin even lowered his arm. \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

“You need to sleep,” Sansa was speaking to him harshly, a boarder-line nag. Without a hairbrush, her hair had dried into thick red waves. She looked natural and beautiful, but Baelish couldn’t gaze at her as much as he wanted to after the river. “I’m sick of worrying we’re going to go off the road.” 

“Stop worrying, babe,” Petyr muttered, but his words did little to reassure her. The exhaustion slurred them, and it was impossible to ignore how tired he felt. They had been rattling on for the last few hours after their dip, both of them quiet until this moment. The gravel on the side of the road had rumbled beneath their tires and Petyr had jolted from Sansa’s words. 

“Then let me drive.” 

“You don’t know how.” 

She crossed her arms and huffed. “I’m sure I could figure it out.” 

Littlefinger smiled, sniffing and looking over at her with his bruised eyes. “I’m not about to let you grind your way through Missouri in first gear.” He took out a pocket watch. “It’s afternoon. Truth be told I really could use a nap. I was just poking fun before.” Petyr paused. He didn’t say anything, but truthfully, he was worried he was so tired he’d be unable to wake back up. He thought of her pushing him out of the truck and driving away without him as he snoozed on in the ditch. 

“Pull over,” Sansa instructed. Petyr glanced at her questioningly. Her eyebrows were raised. “Do it, the next place you find, pull over.” 

Even through his exhaustion a smile played at his lips. This bossy Sansa was enjoyable, especially with the image of her pale and smooth bare skin fresh in his memory. 

There was a little parking lot up ahead with an outhouse. Little spots like these had been scattered all over the Mark Twain national forest. Petyr pulled up and shut the car off. The two sat for a moment and the cab seemed to shrink with the engine’s silence, like they were crammed in a phone booth. Petyr stared sidelong at Sansa and soon he couldn’t help himself. He decided to pretend. 

“So, honey, if I take a nap, how long are you going to wait until you push me out and steal my truck?” he draped his arm across the back of the bench. The exhaustion had emboldened him in a drowsy, lazy way…almost as if he had too much whiskey. Her hair was so close to his fingertips…and his eyes had seen her body. The secret they both knew but hadn’t mentioned since they had gotten into the truck. 

“This isn’t your truck,” Sansa answered. 

Petyr shrugged and blinked lazily at her, his fingers finally reaching out and taking a strand of her hair in between his thumb and index. It felt like silk. She allowed him to do it. 

“True, it’s not my truck. I stole it. I suppose you’re a bad influence, I don’t know what it is about you,” Littlefinger drawled. He couldn’t stop. 

He craved the blush that crept up her neck

. Exhaustion had wiped away the man’s memory, the promise he had made to himself was lost in the tired muscles of his brain. Leaning forward now, across the space of the cab, a short journey but one that felt like it took an eternity. A small pressure against his chest, he was moving away, away from her gravity and away from her warmth. 

“Petyr, please just get some rest,” she was patient, kind, and Littlefinger realized he hadn’t heard her say his name before and it sounded like the warmness he had craved as a child. It sounded like what he had constantly chased with his whores. They had all whispered it breathily in his ear, trying to sound like the seductresses they fancied themselves as being, and each time it had churned his stomach. Petyr’s name in Sansa’s mouth, stern but kind, telling him to sleep, was a lullaby he never knew he had needed. 

Littlefinger kicked his feet up on the bench and he felt Sansa’s hands at his shoulders. An indescribable feeling of heat followed by numbness leached into his body from her palms and he felt pressure, bringing him lower and lower until he felt his had and neck rest in her lap. He was falling backwards into a field of poppies, their opium sending him on a lazy high he would forever crave. Sansa’s skirt was thin and he could feel the body heat from her legs. Petyr looked up at the girl and watched her face closely, his jaw clenched. Long, slender fingers started to run through his hair, gently at first, before gaining confidence and easing the tension from his body with the little touches. The bliss traveled to his brain and he could see her naked in the river waters, swimming like her mother had, but looking much more a woman than Cat ever would. 

Sansa was looking forward, out the dash and into the trees and he traced the lines of her neck and jaw with his purple eyes. Dryness filled his mouth like the desert. Her pulse thudded against her carotid and he hoped it was thudding as forcefully as his was. Littlefinger didn’t know what do with her, or what could be done with him. Battered, bruised, lost, and on the run, but he wasn’t alone. 

“Go to sleep,” hummed Sansa, “I’ll be right here.” Her other arm draped across his chest, comfortably. Soon the fingers left his hair and he felt them on his forehead, trying to pull the creases from his skin. His eyes fluttered closed, feeling her warm, smooth fingertips tracing all over his face, her thumb even rubbing the bristly chin hairs of his facial hair. 

He had never slept with a woman before. They had been asked or forced to leave before he drifted off, always alone. 

There was a first time for everything. 


	15. 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here you guys go! Sorry it's taken this long, please enjoy!

Warmth brushed against his forehead and it slowly pulled him back from the dark. Petyr was awake, lucid behind his lids, but he kept them shut as he absorbed the sensation and tried to guess what it was. It felt like a gentle breeze on a stagnant August afternoon, just blowing the heat from one part of the world to the other and providing little relief, yet still pleasant. Funny how all humans instinctually craved it, even when faced with the flames on their skin.

His neck was crooked, and he felt cushion beneath his head. Grogginess clutched at him stubbornly, trying to pull him back to his dreams with tacky fingers Feeling as if he would drift off one again, Petyr tried to remember where he was. He was surrounded by black, both from his closed eyes and from his memory. He had slept so heavily that everything had been wiped from his over-stimulated brain the second it had a chance of rest. 

The puffing air was odorless, and finally stumped he cracked his tired eyes open. Low light filled wherever he was, casting everything in a gloomy haze of gray. An angelic face was looming above him, free of wrinkles and lax with sleep. A cherub that had grown up. Gazing upwards, Petyr started to recollect. 

He was nestled in her lap and she had slumped forward in her own sleep, her soft breaths puffing against his forehead like little clouds. Sansa was so close to him…he could see her poor lips start to chap. Her cheek was marred by the little speck of a scar from her cousin’s BB gun, he could spot it in the low light. Sheets of red hair framed her face and Littlefinger felt enveloped in her. Entranced, like a moth to a light, Petyr reached up, traveled his hand up the side of her neck and cupping her cheek. In her sleep she leaned into his palm, rougher than it used to be from gripping the steering wheels and the guns. His thumb rubbed her skin, barely brushing against the corner of her mouth and moving upwards. 

Littlefinger wasn’t thinking about her nakedness in the river. He wasn’t thinking about lingering at her lap while he removed her shoes back in the log home, he wasn’t really thinking about anything but how her cheek filled his palm perfectly. It was a new sensation for him…not scheming or planning and just absorbing. He reached further with his fingers, curling them around the back of her head…but he didn’t pull her towards him. 

Sansa’s eyes were opening and Littlefinger thought about pulling away, but he held her still, feeling her pulse on his skin. 

“What are you doing?” she questioned softly.

Petyr’s jaw moved and his mouth hung slack as he tried to think of what to say. “Looking at you,” he finally offered, his voice low as if he would break the spell between them if he spoke too loudly. 

Expressionless, Sansa blinked, her lashes long enough to almost reach the mark near her eye. Unsure of herself, she asked another question. “What is it that you want?” 

Petyr adjusted himself in her lap, moving his head and glancing away with the weight of her question. He was hoping the answer would’ve popped into his head immediately and he could declare it for her, pulling her towards him like in all the romances he used to read as a boy. But his head was blank, filled with static and frayed nerves. 

“What do you think I want, Sweetheart?” Littlefinger murmured, stalling. Bringing his hand down away from her neck he savored a twirl of her soft hair around his finger. It had curled without a good brushing and he felt the wildness of it against his skin. 

His voice had dipped into that timbre that prickled Sansa’s skin and she found herself feeling very young and silly. “I’m not my mother,” she whispered as her stomach flipped. The words were more to herself than to Petyr. She remembered overhearing Lysa’s words as her aunt fought with the man in her lap, eventually angering him enough to warrant her death. 

“No,” Petyr mused, looking back up at her, “You’re not. I can see how different you are.” 

Affirmation and validation filled Sansa, making her blink slowly. Someone knew that she was her own person. She had never tasted independence like this, being the daughter of a successful mobster had always shrouded her in pre-meditated impressions and scripted interactions. Sitting in the cab of the truck with this man, this older and dangerous man, sparked something within Sansa Stark that felt electric and exciting. 

Petyr watched as she worried her rosy plump bottom lip. 

“I want to be back in my town,” Petyr finally answered. “But that’s not all. I want Manhattan. I want to have drinks and reefer in my bars, with a good woman beside me, knowing that Lannister’s are dead and I will be left alone.” 

Sansa pulled up and away from him, leaning back on the bench of the truck. She huffed. “They’re too big, we couldn’t do anything to them.” 

Petyr sat up as well, his eyebrow quirked with the small little detail that he heard in her words. “We?” 

She crossed her arms. “I want them dead too. Makes sense that we would work together, we’ve come this far.” 

Petyr wanted to go farther. 

“Well,” he hummed, running a hand over his stubbled jaw. “we could try, I suppose.” 

“I still have a family to lose,” Sansa said quietly as she picked at the hem of her dress. 

Littlefinger admired her loyalty and once again he was reminded of the horror she had been drug through the last few weeks. Some of it caused by him, he mused as he thought of pulling the trigger. But still she sat, back straight and her body composed, offering him comfort and warmth so he could sleep. 

“I know what else I want,” Petyr finally said, his voice a leaving him in a purr before he could stop himself. 

“Hmm?” Sansa hummed, turning to look at him in the low light of the cab. He was lounged there, with one of his arms on the steering wheel and the other against the back of the bench. Even for a smaller man he held himself with confidence, the bruises under his eyes adding a rugged intensity to his gaze as he stared at her. She felt the air around them change, sucking the air from her lungs like a vacuum. 

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing at his collar and he sat up, his hand reaching to her arm. “I want to give you something good,” the words sounded awkward. “I want you to trust me, you need someone to trust. Fully. You need someone.” 

Sansa let his hand encircle around her arm, feeling him squeeze the weight of his words into her muscles. Heat leached through her skin and somehow swelled in her belly. She inched closer to him, the leather bench of the truck creaking with her weight. 

Petyr watched her closely, mentally making sure that he applied no pressure to pull her towards him and he did not lean forward in anticipation, even though his body screamed to be near her. The promise he had made to himself still held true, he was going to let her do whatever she wanted. 

Fire filled him when Sansa crossed that invisible line between them and she was now in his space. The hand traveled up to her face, cradling her jaw and stroking the little mark on her cheek. Her eyes fluttered with the warmth of his palm and she felt lightheaded. This was a man, not a boy, and he was touching her as if she was an egg he didn’t want to break. This wasn’t like the childhood petting she had allowed when she was trying to attract the boys back home. This was real, substantial, like the rain after a drought. 

When her eyes opened, she saw him inches away, eyes searching her face. His mouth was closed, the muscles gritted as if he was holding his breaths hostage. He cocked his head a fraction, trying to watch her and she realized he was waiting. Waiting for her. Sansa looked at his lips and made up her mind. 

Petyr was lost. It was a soft kiss, the two of them simply meeting together and his body flooded with heat, fire shooting down to his toes. She was so close to him and her lips were like petals, soft and wanting. Needing. 

Now it was his turn. He cupped his other hand around her face and pulled her closer to him, parting his lips and deepening their kiss. She graciously followed his lead, the two of them leaning into each other in the cab, and he felt her hands reach out to touch his chest. She was unsure, but he heard a small little noise escape her lips and he leaned forward, wanting more of her. Tracing his tongue across her bottom lip, he elicited another quiet mew and Sansa opened her mouth to him. His arms encircled her, keeping her as close as he could and he felt Sansa reach up and loop her arms around his neck. 

He felt her pulse beat against his mouth as he traveled down to kiss her neck, his nose trailing along her jaw. Petyr could feel her fingers reach up the back of his neck, pulling up into his hair. He felt himself press against his trousers and he was lost, drowning like in the river. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted so strongly. None of his girls had ever stirred him like this. Littlefinger’s past had been filled with obligation, business transactions that had guaranteed that his business employed the best, but this was something real and something that he craved. 

Reaching his hand lower, he found her thigh and pushed her skirt up. Another small little moan reassured him and he gripped her skin. 

Four sharp raps on the window made both of them jump, out of breath and flushed. Panic washed over Sansa’s face and her eyes darted about, her lips plumped and a blush on her face. There was a distinct light shining into the cab and the two of them squinted into the face of their interruption. 

A sheriff’s deputy was standing outside, unamused and looking rather annoyed. He beckoned for Petyr to get out of the car. Littlefinger glanced at Sansa, his breath heaving slightly from their tryst. “It’ll be alright,” he said, hoping it was true. 

“Hello, sir,” Petyr said awkwardly, trying to smooth his shirt and his hair. He hoped the deputy wouldn’t look at him too closely, he still needed a moment to hide his arousal. 

“What are you doing in there?” the deputy asked. Petyr sighed, knowing this game all too well. The officer knew exactly what they were doing, any idiot would, he just wanted to see him squirm, try to tell a lie. That would offer more questioning. 

“Well, sir,” Petyr said, crossing his arms. “as embarrassing as it is, we were trying to find a private place. We’re newlyweds, you see, and I suppose we just couldn’t get enough of each other.” 

The deputy was disappointed that Petyr owned up to their activities in the car. “Didn’t think I saw a ring on you,” he said gruffly. A revolver hung at his hip, heavy and clunky enough to make him stand a certain way. 

Petyr ignored it. Instead he shrugged, trying his best to look defeated. “Look at me,” he gave a pitiful little scoff, “I can’t afford no ring. My clothes don’t even fit.” 

The pitiful little statement worked and the cop took a step back. Petyr saw his vehicle parked behind the truck. Another officer was sitting inside, fatter than the one in front of him. Sure, send the skinny one in case they run. 

“What happened to your face?” the deputy questioned. 

Petyr tried to convince him of their hard luck. “See, her father isn’t the nicest…but she’s crazy about me, as you can see,” Petyr gave him a grin. “Suffered a punch just to be with her.” 

The sheriff almost smiled… but held his mouth firm. “Looks like he gave you a good one. Where are you headed?” 

“North, St. Paul or Chicago, can’t decide yet. I’m a numbers man, so I’m trying to find work.” 

Looking him up and down, the deputy seemed to agree with him. Surely this small man had to do book work, he wouldn’t last in the field. “That why you have the gas can?” 

Littlefinger nodded, “Yessir.” 

“Well,” the sheriff said, finally shutting off his electric torch and hooking it on his belt. “Get on your way. No more pitstops, I don’t want a family to drive by and see you two. Got it?” 

Petyr agreed and got back into the truck, starting it up before pulling away. The deputies pulled away in the opposite direction, making a sort of U-turn on the narrow road. Sansa didn’t speak, she seemed shook up. Feeling strangely superstitious, he didn’t speak either, not wanting to break any sort of spell or jinx anything. However, she stayed close by him, closer than she needed to, their legs touching as they bumped up the road, picking their way through Missouri, Petyr’s lips still burning from her. 


	16. 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, so sorry for the wait. I moved! And truth be told i had some writers block i had to work through. thank you all for your patience!  
> -J

The ride was silent, and therefore long. Trees passed by in perfect unity, looking all the world like they were splitting the world like dark lines. Eventually, the further north they trekked, the thinner the trees got. It was subtle at first, a clearing here or there to make room for a lake, pond, or river. But then the gaps swelled into meadows and rolling hills before finally opening to rows and rows of agricultural fields. They followed the river until they began to see towns and neighborhoods. And as they traveled even further the horizon was eventually shattered by tall buildings. They were nearing St. Louis.

Petyr wanted to speak but his lips were still numb from the kiss. But he didn’t let himself worry with Sansa’s quietness. He had felt how eager she was, how willing she had been to lean closer. The only thing that was challenging was staying on track and not pulling over to the side of the road to kiss her again. They needed to get off the road. People on the roads were targets, in more ways than one. 

“Is this St. Louis?” Sansa finally asked, craning her head to look out the window. They were edging their way into the city, passing brick buildings that housed apartments and smaller storefronts while the ambitious city center loomed ahead of them. 

“Gateway to the West,” Petyr muttered as they picked their way though. An enormous red brick building ate up the entire city block in front of them, giant tin letters sprouting from its roof. The smell of sour, fermenting grain seeped into the truck and Sansa crinkled up her nose. 

“What’s that?” 

“Brewery,” Littlefinger said, watching her out of the corner of his eye. 

Craning her neck upwards to gaze at the Budweiser brewery she asked, “What are they making now? Now that they can’t make beer?” 

“Oh, Anheuser-Busch is probably finding some way to still make beer. But I’ve heard they’re selling off their yeast and beechwood.” 

They began to pick their way to the center, a large domed capital building peaking from the rest of the brick. Then they continued until Sansa spied a sprawling red tiled roof up the street. The sour yeast smell from Anheuser-Busch slowly drifted away and the mucky Mississippi waters made St. Louis smell like mud and silt and she was surprised how busy it was. 

Cautiously, Petyr parked in the alley next to a pharmacy and they quickly stuffed items into bags, taking what they could in order to abandon the vehicle. She shoved a bottle into the bottom of a sack and shoved clothing on top of it, pushing down and wadding as much as she could. She watched as Petyr craned his neck to look down the entrance of the ally before he unbuttoned his pants. Reaching into the cab, he took the shotgun and slipped it down his pantleg, cinching his belt around his weight tightly. He glanced at her, his eyes intent and he gave a little nod. “Let’s go,” Littlefinger whispered as he grabbed his own pack. 

“Where are we going?” Sansa puffed as she kept pace with him. 

Petyr stalled, slowed down so Sansa could catch up, his gait a little stiff as he tried to move normally with the shotgun. He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her with him and she allowed him to do it. They wanted to get as far away from Lysa’s old truck as humanly possible. 

“We’re going to the station,” Littlefinger answered, watching as Sansa adjusted the strap to the burlap bag she was carrying. It was undoubtedly digging into her shoulder thanks to the weight. “That big building?” 

“Sure thing, Sweetling,” he murmured, pulling her closer as people began to fill up the sidewalk. It was late evening; workers were leaving to head home to their apartments or their homes. To family dinners or cold sandwiches. Sansa and Littlefinger blended in with their shabby clothes and bags the closer they got to the giant station, which looked like a medieval castle as it loomed over the street. They were two travelers, trying to get home. No one would notice. 

Littlefinger’s fingers were tight around Sansa’s arm, but he stroked her skin with his thumb as he kept moving. Sansa wanted to take a break. Her feet hurt from hoofing it up the street and her bag was too heavy to just be slung over one shoulder. She felt the strap digging in and she worried about a bruise. Not to mention, her mind was still spinning from their heated moment in the car and how abruptly it had been interrupted. She kept watching him, looking at the lines of his face and the purple bruises that still cradled his eyes. Sansa wondered what he was thinking. 

They approached the station and pushed their way inside and Sansa immediately paused with her head tilted upwards, looking at the large domed ceiling and ornate walls. It clashed with the steam, riverbanks, and red brick of the rest of the city and she took a moment to admire. Littlefinger got close to her, placing his hand at her back. 

“We have to keep moving,” he whispered, the skin of her neck and ear warming his lips. 

She shivered from the puff of his breath and continued, following him dutifully. 

“How do you know where to go all the time?” Sansa puffed, a little out of breath from their driving pace. 

He tossed a smile her way. “I’ve been around.” 

Baelish pulled her to a service door, reaching up and rapping three times sharply before pausing. Then he tapped twice more before pausing again and kicking the door with his shoe in order to elicit a dull thud. 

It opened and Petyr pulled the girl inside. Sansa looked at him, impressed with his ability to remember codes and locations. It was all so secretive and, if not for the trauma she had been subjected to, she would’ve felt excitement. 

A very pretty man was standing on the other side of the door, watching them closely as Petyr dropped the bag. His suit was silk, dark purple with a gold tie, his lapels wide and flashy. His high collar held an emerald broach pinned through the knot of his tie, dimpling it. 

“Well,” he drawled, his voice as lazy and as murky as the Mississippi, “If it isn’t the Littlefinger.” The greeting seemed smug and Sansa pressed herself closer to Petyr, just now realizing how tiny the space was once the door shut and the din of the station was muffled. 

There was a dull thud of music coming from the wooden trap door further inside the little room, its handle worn brass. The man’s arms were crossed and he was standing on the wood, spats on his feet. 

“Loras,” Petyr greeted, slumping his shoulder and letting the bag thump to the ground. “Surprising to see you on door duty.” 

“Who’s with you?” Loras asked, not responding to Petyr’s quip about manning the door. 

“I need to talk to talk to Lady Rose.” 

The pretty man ran his hand up to smooth out his already slicked back hair, the ends of which curled slightly at the nape of his neck. Sansa wondered how much he had gooped on in order to tame the curls. 

“Are you Loras Tyrell?” Sansa asked from behind Petyr. He craned his neck to look at her and Loras stared at the girl as well, his eyes confused. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m Sansa Stark,” Sansa said and she felt Petyr reach behind him and grab her arm, squeezing tightly. But she continued anyway. “I think our fathers are friends?” 

Loras’s brow knit together quizzically. “Chicago?” 

Sansa nodded earnestly, but he didn’t smile. In fact, his eyes widened and shifted in his spot, the creased lines of his suit making him move stiffly. 

The air hung dead and awkward around them and Sansa suddenly became uncomfortable, like she had said something very wrong. She spotted the look that the younger man tossed to Petyr. “Well, then…” Loras then said, flatly, shifting his weight so he was no longer standing on the trap door. “Welcome to St. Louis.” 

Music swelled to a roar as he pulled open the door to reveal a staircase beneath them, stone and narrow, no doubt originally built to lead to a large boiler room. Petyr picked up his bag, turning to look at her, his bruised eyes unblinking. She winced apologetically, starting to open her mouth to speak, but he merely reached out and held a hand to Sansa, squeezing it gently as she accepted. Then the two followed Loras Tyrell down. Body heat, booze, and music swirled all around them. 

Sansa recognized it as the blues, but with more excitement than anything she had experienced back in Chicago. Chicago had been gritty, soulful as the songs came from the cold. But this, this almost sounded like a lush summer day. Her ears thudded along with her heartbeat and the drums, laughter roaring around them. While the station was filled with tired workers just wanting to return home, the basement was alive and pumping like a heart, clad in gold and red velvet and drowning in booze. People were crammed like sardines, laughing and dancing and all of them were young. Their faces were painted with the type of manic joy that kept them going through the entire day and no doubt through the rest of the night. It was unlike anything that Sansa had ever seen before. Gossip magazines described parties like this, but usually in New York or Los Angeles…it was the last thing she expected to see in the basement of a train station in St. Louis. 

They were jostled and tossed, pushed against as they tried to make their way through the crowd. No one batted an eye to their shabby clothes and packs; all were too busy crooning to each other and dancing. It was a long, narrow room, with arched ceilings that reminded Sansa of old catacombs in castles. A stage had been set up in one end of the room, it’s polished stone floor scuffed and worn beneath the feet of the dancing crowd. A tall, handsome black man was standing there crooning with three of the most glamorous women Sansa had ever seen. Clad in champagne colored feathers and beads, they sang and shimmied, their faces aglow and their teeth bright. The girl looked away, feeling shabby and small town. 

Petyr was too busy making sure he didn’t loose the lean form of Loras Tyrell in the crowd. His head pounded with the music and he felt uneasy. He hadn’t liked Loras’s reaction when Sansa had spoken up in the entry. He knew something that Petyr didn’t. Hackles were raised. 

Loras approached two men sitting on barstools, their backs pressed against the wall. Between them was a thick wooden door, a small window cut out at the very top. They didn’t even get up as the trio neared. Loras let himself right on in, holding it open as Petyr pulled Sansa behind him. The door slammed and the music had returned to the muffled heartbeat of everyone outside. 

It was dark and Sansa smelled potpourri, dried and a little acrid like what her mother used to put in the parlor during the fall months. Two soft backed chairs and a chesterfield surrounded a round coffee table, its worn oak surface scratched and nicked. A couple gas lanterns provided little bubbles of warm light. 

Sansa jumped a little when she noticed the white face of an old woman sitting in one of the chairs, her hands folded in front of her. She had half rimmed spectacles perched at the end of her nose, her hair a French twist and her dress had a high lace neck, buttoned all the way up to rest just beneath her chin. 

“Baelish, my favorite little schemer, how are you, dear?” the woman asked, eyes glinting in the low light. They flashed like a sharks, there was no smile on her face. Beneath the wrinkles one could tell she had been beautiful, strong bone structure and high cheekbones. 

“The good Lady Rose,” Petyr greeted, sounding cool and collected, “I’ve come to ask a favor.” 

Her eyebrows raised and she craned her neck. “That’s a pretty friend you have with you.” 

Loras stepped forward and bent at the waist to whisper in the woman’s ear. She listened intently, her face showing nothing, and then tipped her chin up to murmur back to Loras. 

“Little Miss Stark,” the woman drawled, the words coming out looped and easy like they always did in the south. “How nice to see you here, although I am surprised with your choosing of traveling partners.” 

“Hello,” Sansa awkwardly responded. 

Finally smiling, the woman motioned lazily to Loras, “This here is my grandson. I’m Olenna Tyrell, the good ol’ Lady Rose, but you can call me Rosie, got that, hon?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Sansa, knowing full well she would never call her Rosie. Olenna knew it too and her smile didn’t waver. 

“No offense, dear, but you look a wreck. Loras is going to bring you back to the girls and they’ll dress you up while we talk.” 

Sansa looked at Petyr nervously. He had no choice but to nod and watched the pretty grandson of Lady Rose lead her away. He stiffened when Loras gently placed a hand at Sansa’s back to lead her out of the room. Little did he know it, but his hand was flexed in a tight fist. 

The ruffling of cloth alerted him that Tyrell was standing up. 

“Jealousy isn’t a good look on you, Petyr,” the old woman sighed, making her way to a bar cart that sat in the shadows. “Don’t worry about Loras.” 

“I’m not,” he lied. 

“So,” she called to him past the clink of ice in glasses. “How did you get tangled up in the Stark girl? A little far from home, aren’t we?” 

Olenna was short, but strong and sturdy after years of clawing her way up ladders. Petyr accepted her drink as she held it to him. “You’re not going to use that thing on me, are you?” She winked, pointing at the leg that hid his shotgun. 

“No.” 

Her eyes squinted and she looked him up and down, thinking to herself, before she pointed to one of the chairs and Baelish moved stiffly towards it to sit. She settled back down in the other, sipping. “I love honeyed whiskey,” the old woman hummed. 

“I thought you stayed out of the liquor business?” Petyr said, sipping as well. He enjoyed it. 

Lady Rose sighed, “Well, I thought so too. The south west is drying out. Each year is getting worse for crops as we go along. So we found a change in business, just like you did.” 

“My business will never dry up,” Littlefinger offered as he took another drink. 

“No, but I suppose your employees eventually will.” She chuckled at her own joke. 

“That girl is polite, Ned raised her well.” 

“Ned’s dead,” Petyr replied, taking another sip. 

“Oh, I know. We all know,” Olenna mused. She swirled her glass, “I suppose you haven’t heard the rest of it, have you?” 

Petyr grew cold. He thought of Lysa’s battered and bloody body hidden away in the hills. 

“Why did you send Sansa off with Loras?” he asked. Petyr was gripping the glass too tightly. 

“Well, someone, and now I suppose I know who, made Tywin Lannister angry,” Olenna said quietly. “He’s got families all over, some even in Chicago, but hell…you know that. Rumor got out that he was offering rewards and full debt forgiveness for any Stark that was killed.” 

Petyr’s mouth ran dry. 

“It brings me no joy to tell you this, but Stark’s son the older one…Robb, is dead. Shot down on their way to church. He was supposed to be getting married, so the birds say.” Olenna sipped at her drink. 

The news was shocking, hanging in the little room like a lascivious picture he didn’t want to look directly at. The woman watched him closely, wanting to see how he reacted. Rumor had reached the Lady Rose that Petyr Baelish was in the mix somehow, but no one had any answers as to why his name was floating around in the gossip, popping up here and there. Littlefinger slumped forward, the gun digging up into his hip, but he didn’t care. 

“But it’s interesting,” the old lady continued, bulldozing through Petyr’s obvious reaction to the news. “Because no one’s mentioned anything specific about you, but yet your name has come up several times, and why would that be, I wondered. But now, seeing you here, it’s been you that’s scampering all around this side of the country with Ned Stark’s daughter while her family is being slaughtered in Chicago. Little young for you, don’t you think, honey?” 

Petyr glared at the old woman. “I had nothing to do with that, I’m hearing about it for the first time.” 

Tyrell pursed her thin lips before reaching between the cushions of her chair. Petyr tensed, remembering the stories of people being pulled away from her office by the ankles, dead as a doornail. Instead. she withdrew a gilded case of cigarettes and stood, walking back to the bar cart. Reaching over and plucking a long, thin metal holder from a vase on the bar, she pressed the cigarette to the holder and lit it with a match. Olenna took her time coming back to her chair, sucking on the cigarette. 

“From what I remember you’re a schemer, not a brute. I believe you didn’t have anything to do with the Chicago mess,” she dismissed the massacre with a wave of her hand. “Truthfully, it happened rather quickly. Heard about some skirmish in Philly before everything happened in Chicago. Quite a busy week or two.” Smoke curled from her skinny cigarette and she exhaled through her nostrils, looking like an old dragon. “That girl looks strong, is that what happened to your face?” 

“Lysa did that,” Littlefinger groaned, sitting upright. “We had a disagreement.” 

“That witch that lives in the mountains? Hmm. Everyone seems to be getting angry at poor Littlefinger.” 

“Look,” Petyr said, tossing his cards on the table. “I was trying to play neutral, you know. I wanted to protect my town. I need help. The Lannister’s have had it too good for too long. You of all people can respect that, I would assume.” 

“Don’t assume anything, son,” Ol’ Lady Rose quipped. “Their stills buy my grain just like the Starks did. I think that you wanted to have the two shiny sides of one coin. Successful town and powerful friends, which backfired. So now you’re stuck with a price on your head and a hefty box of red-headed baggage. I’ve been a pretty good life here on the river and I’m too old to be getting into any wars. And if your ‘favor’ was asking me to help go after the Lannisters, then you’re a little less clever than I had originally thought.”

“I don’t need a favor going after the Lannister’s,” Petyr barked. “I just need help getting her back to Chicago.” 

“Did you not just hear me? Chicago’s no good,” Lady Rose blew the smoke harshly upwards before leaning forward. “They killed women, Petyr. Not just that ambitious son of Ned’s, they killed his soon-to-be-wife. According to some, she was pregnant. That sad girl you brought in here was going to be an aunt. Then they killed Catlyn. And then they’ll kill her, if she turns up in Chicago.” 

The floor was dropping away from him wooden plank by wooden plank and his body was doused in icy water. Littlefinger was unpleasantly floating, hanging in a mess of shock and sudden numbness. The alcohol roiled in his gut and his breath hitched. “You didn’t say that before,” Littlefinger managed, standing up, “You didn’t say that Cat was dead.” 

Olenna waved her hand, snorting. “My mistake. I’m saying it now.” 

The dark room and the potpourri were suffocating him. The gunmetal was burning his leg and tears threatened to sting at his eyes. He thought of her, lying dirty and bloody in the slush filled streets, the dark red hair he had obsessed over sprawled and dirty in a puddle. 

The words had left him, his mouth hung slack before he could manage, “Can she stay here? In St. Louis?” 

Ol’ Lady Rose shook her head. “No honey, I’m not a governess. She can’t stay here. I can’t risk it. St. Louis is already hurting because of Anhueser, I won’t let myself be taken out by the Lannisters and have this town suffocate.” 

Legs feeling week, Petyr sank back down into the chair, rubbing his hand over his face. He tried to push the sight of Cat’s blood out of his head, he needed a plan. A new one, a good one. 

“Starks had families from this side of the Mississippi all the way to Bismarck. As far south as Cedar Rapids. The Lannisters have money, but those Starks had loyalty, land, and numbers.” 

“If anyone in Chicago sees that red little head of hers, you best bet there will be a bullet through it in seconds,” Olenna snapped, the ice in her glass clinking. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but this pot seems a little too big to be stirred by you, Littlefinger.” 

“Maybe Minneapolis.” 

Olenna scoffed. “Now there might be someone who despises the Lannister’s as much as I do, but I’ve heard that Roose can be trusted about as far as I can throw him.” The Ol’ Lady Rose finished her honeyed whiskey, sucking her thin lips against her teeth. “Which isn’t very far, don’t let my strong physique fool you. Those Swedes can be cunning if they want to be.” 

Petyr downed the rest of his drink as well, staring at the ice while his throat tingled with the burn. He looked up at Lady Rose, who was watching him closely, her head cocked to the side. 

“I’ll help you two get to Minneapolis,” she said, “How much money do you have.” 

“I was hoping to save what we had,” Littlefinger offered flatly, “In case of emergency.” 

Olenna smiled, “Smart little man.” She stood up and helped herself to another drink. “I’ll give you two hundred dollars.” 

Petyr was wary. “How much time do I have to repay?” 

The woman waved a withered hand. “Listen, this time it will be a gift. Not because I feel sympathy for you, or that I admire this little moral adventure you’re on. I just think New York has gone too far this time, killing women and children like that. That old bastard needs someone to stand up to him. I’m sick of Tywin thinking he’s the king of the new world.” 

She lit another cigarette and sucked on it. 

“Leave St. Louis out of this whole mess. Stay the night, but tomorrow you’re going on a train and heading to Minneapolis, got it?” 

Petyr nodded. 

“Loras will bring you a check. And a new suit or two, the hill farmer isn’t a good look for you. You’re too handsome for that.” She let out a long exhale, smoke filling the room. 

“Whatever money you have, you better invest in some better guns. I might have some to sell, if you’re thinking of spending. My monetary offer will still be $200.” 

“Thank you,” Littlefinger said. Not caring if the woman watched, he loosened his belt and pulled out the old shotgun. He thumped it on the coffee table and Olenna chuckled. 

“You know, never in all my years did I think that it would be you that upsets this whole careful game we’ve all been playing, Littlefinger. That was a bet I would never had made. For Atlantic’s City’s sake, I hope you can pull yourself out from this shit. It’s a fun town and I’d hate to see it go.” 


	17. 17

One of the doormen led Petyr through the same thick crowd of people they had threaded through just moments before. Being away from Sansa in a new place still made him uneasy, however that was just one of the many emotions he tangled with as the doorman leaned over to speak with a petit little cocktail waitress, her black hair slicked down in a bob and her dark skin glowing like she had just been baked in the sun. Pearls dangled from silver strands at her earlobes.

“Hiya,” she quipped, standing on her tiptoes to shout in Petyr’s ear. “I’m Marlene. Imma get you suited up. Sounds like Rosie didn’t think you match the dress code.” 

Littlefinger mustered a smile at the girl, noticed she was a good worker, good for business. But he also knew that the Tyrells were never very much involved in the world’s oldest profession. So, by deduction, Marlene was a cigarette and cocktail girl, making her money by being hospitable, beautiful, and fun. Had he been visiting for pleasure he would’ve offered to hire her. 

Musing about business helped keep in him on track, kept him from obsessing over the news of Cat’s death. He was greedily picking through Sansa’s future grief, focusing on the bits of news that fit his own reactions. 

There was a back room next to the stage. It was stuffed with performers, women and men alike, all crammed together trying to share two mirrors and vanities. Women stripped to change costumes, unashamed. Petyr would look, then look away, scanning for Sansa’s red hair. 

“See if there’s anything that fits you in here,” Marlene said, opening up two polished wooden doors of a small closet. “These are Sam’s things. He’s a little guy like you.” 

Petyr didn’t bother to be insulted and he thanked her, leaning forward to dig through the closet. They were flashy, not quite costume, but loud all the same. He appreciated them and he hoped his clothes were still untouched back in Atlantic City. 

He settled on a dark brown suit, thin forest green lines breaking up the suit in a grid pattern. A green tie and he helped himself to a clip collar, which would probably seem stuffy to the young crowd. But Littlefinger knew if he looked sharp he would feel sharper…and he was eager to get back to his old self. Tucked in the back of the dressing room, he quickly pulled the clothes on, brushing his hands across the sleeves and pant legs to smooth out wrinkles. He closed his eyes when he tied his tie. Interrupted by red and auburn, he opened them, sighing wearily. Petyr didn’t know who’s red he saw. He sidestepped, found a mirror, and inspected himself.

The ugly purple bruises beneath his eyes were still there, but at least the swelling had gone down and they were starting to yellow at the edges. Littlefinger decided not to worry about the stubble, but the mess of his hair was beginning to bother him. The gray patches at his temples were growing, spreading further along his head. A silhouette moved beside him, coming closer as he tried to smooth his hair. 

“Here,” a soft voice said. It cut through the din. 

Petyr turned and found Sansa next to him, holding out a well-used and dented tin along with a comb. Blinking, the man took her in. Gone was the country drop-waist cotton dress, cinched with a stranger’s belt. She had found a flapper dress, beaded fringe along the knee-length skirt with the top stitched in a pattern. His eyes followed the line of her neck flowing to her exposed shoulders, broader and stronger than he had expected, yet the thinner straps and scoop neck made her soft, feminine. The exposed skin of her long arms looked like the keys of a piano, ivory and flawless. 

The dressing room fell away and he was shot back to the car, kissing her and wanting more. But then Petyr remembered her mother. Her brother…her family. The irony was sickening…seeing her all dressed up as she waded unknowingly in the wake of her family’s slaughter. 

“What’s wrong?” Sansa asked, snapping him from his trance. Petyr stepped to her, extending his hand and taking the tin. Pomade. Her fingers lingered on the comb, not letting it go right away. “Is everything alright?” 

Weakly, Petyr tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. She had rouge on her lips and cheeks and someone had lined her eyes with kohl. Cat had never worn makeup, and the differences between them were obvious. Yet in the wake of his grief, Petyr could only see the similarities. 

“I look foolish, don’t I?” Sansa asked, reaching up to rub away the makeup. 

“Don’t,” Petyr said, reaching forward and grabbing her wrist. He allowed himself to step even closer to her and the din died away. She had been sprayed with perfume, deep and rich and not flowery like what all the young girls wore. Breathing in greedily, he murmured, “You look beautiful. It’s just new.” 

“One of the singers helped me,” She said, blinking with mascara coated eyes. Suddenly she reached forward and took the pomade back from Baelish. She smiled, “I think I look nice. It’s you that looks a little rough.” 

She was jesting with him and he looked at his shoes, smiling a little. She unscrewed the cap to the tin and scooped up the product, rubbing it in her palms before she said, “Don’t move.” 

Head dipped, Petyr froze. He felt fingers, unsure at first, but then gaining confidence, run through his unruly hair. Then he felt the teeth of the comb on his scalp. He couldn’t resist the sigh that left him and he felt his eyes close with the sensation of being touched. Helped. Of all the girls he had paid, no one had ever given a shit to help him dress or style his hair. He felt his chin tipping upward and he reached out, grasping the back of her neck with is hand. Petyr pulled Sansa to him and kissed her gently. 

Eyes fluttering closed, Sansa let him. Short bristles of Petyr’s moustache tickled her lip and she felt a hand grip at her waist. He signed against her, his warm breath puffing against Sansa’s skin as he broke away and pressed his forehead against hers, his thumb rubbing the back of her neck. 

“I hope I was allowed that,” he rasped. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, instead. a

Petyr looked upwards and the hand at her neck moved to cup her cheek. Eyes boring into hers, he cocked his head, trying desperately to find the right words. She watched him with furrowed eyebrows. She could feel the change in him. The kiss wasn’t flirtatious, exciting. It felt needy, desperate. 

“Sansa,” Petyr murmured. He glanced away, watching all of the singers and performers push their way around changing costumes and doing makeup. The bubble around them suddenly burst and Littlefinger knew they had to be alone for what he was about to say. She deserved privacy for the grief that would undoubtedly swallow her up. And his own weakness craved privacy as well. 

She glanced left and right, picking up on what he was trying to say. “Not here?” He swallowed, the bad news pushing stubbornly against his Adam’s apple. Her face flashed with Cat’s. “No, honey, not here.” 

“Alright,” she mused, but she couldn’t deny the pit of dread and worry in her stomach. She didn’t like the way Petyr was acting and she knew whatever news he had wasn’t good. “Now what?” 

“We get on a train in the morning, Ol’ Lady Rose is giving us some free tickets, some clothes…a place to crash for tonight.” 

“Can we say here for a little bit?” Sansa asked, biting her lip. The guild and gleam would be a good distraction for her. After days of travel, blood, and unfortunate news she was hungry for the thudding music that beckoned them from the other side of the dressing room door. 

Petyr found himself pretending for her, a sly smile painted across his lips. “Never been to a party like this?” Need pulsed through him, fueled by the swinging music and the ache in his heart. Selfishly, he wanted his replacement, and as he stepped closer to her and rested his hands on her beaded hips, he watched Cat melt away from Sansa’s face. The auburn brightened to flame-red in his memory and he indulged in Sansa’s lips, drinking from her the acceptance he had been denied as a boy. 

“Come on,” he hummed, pulling away from her and taking her by the hand. He led her back out into the party, sweat and champagne making the dancers sheen like they were made of diamond dust themselves. He brought her to the bar, ordered two cocktails for them. Gin, and mint, something she had never indulged in back in Chicago. 

Taking the glass, Sansa turned away from the bar to stare at the dancefloor. Arms and legs were waving and swinging in time with the drums and trumpet. She watched the women’s dresses turn into cyclones, the beading and sequins reflecting the warm light from the chandeliers. Baelish sidled up next to her, his arm extended along the bar surface. He sipped, then craned his neck upwards to whisper in her ear. 

“Are you thinking of dancing?” he asked. 

She blushed, shook her head. “I can’t do anything like that,” she said, her eyes wide as a man literally threw his partner into the air. 

Petyr laughed. “I can’t either.” 

“Maybe a slow song,” Sansa said, hoping that Baelish didn’t hear. In the past, Sansa would sway in her room, pretending for a moment that she was elegant and desirable while her record player crackled and hummed. 

The two stood together, and soon one drink became two. Petyr flagged down one of the cigarette girls and bought a pack, smiling at her and slipping in a bill as a tip. Sansa wished she was as bubbly and carefree as the other women were. Petyr lit up a cigarette, taking a deep inhale while the end glowed red. He released the puff of smoke, some of it still trailing out of his nose when he turned and regarded the crowd. 

“Hey baby,” a different voice drawled in Sansa’s ear, “Care to party?” 

Sansa turned and was face to face with a tall, thin man, his dark, handsome face free of any wrinkles. He was holding out a cigarette to her. “Best grass in town, honey.” 

Petyr’s arm tightened around her and he leaned over and watched him. “How much?” “Shit,” he laughed, “thought you were alone. Take it, free trial.” He winked at Sansa. “You’ll come to find me after, guarantee.” 

She took the joint and watched him sway through the crowd. Petyr was watching her. “Got a match?” she asked him and he smiled at her. 

“You ever smoke before, Sweetheart?” 

“No,” she admitted. “But Robb and Jon used to. I could smell it in the garage.” 

Petyr took the joint from her and struck a match. He took a pull, and she watched him hold in his breath. He blew out the thick smoke and Sansa’s nose crinkled from the smell. He stifled a cough. “He was right, it’s good,” he muttered, taking a drink. He held it to her, “Want to try?” 

She looked at the crowd, saw how happy they were. She felt the buzz from the alcohol and something inside of her suddenly lunged towards the weed. Sansa found herself wanting to feel numb, float. She thought of Lysa, her father…. She thought of being snatched out of her own home, tied up, and then forced to sit in darkness until she found herself in New York. The breaking point was nearing and she needed an escape. 

Sansa coughed so hard Petyr rubbed her back “Easy, sweet,” he hummed. “Maybe just stick with the booze for tonight.” 

The girl nodded, tears threatening to spill from her lids. Petyr took another drag on the joint, letting the smoke trickle out of his mouth and sucked up by his nose. Her cheeks were flushed and he felt the weed go to work in his head. Back in Atlantic City, booze and grass would turn him into the type of boss that sampled his supply and his girls were nowhere around. 

A new singer was introduced and the crowd took a break to clap. She was a soul singer, her hair pinned in elegant curls atop her head and her lips painted a deep maroon color. She held the microphone with glinting nails, bangle bracelets sparkling at her wrists. 

Littlefinger was comfortable, he was at a party, he was surrounded by booze and vices. This was what he built his business on, this was his environment. He regarded Sansa, how she glanced around with her wide, out-of-town eyes. He finished off the marijuana and his arm tightened around her, pulling her to the dancefloor. 

“What are you doing?” she asked nervously. 

“ ‘Maybe a slow song,’” he hummed her own words back to her. “Trust me.” 

They found a spot and Petyr found himself obsessing over the feel of her beads against his palms. He held her hand and waist, her own hand finding his arm. The slow music was impossible not to sway with and he looked at Sansa with eyes lidded with possessiveness. They rocked back and forth for a moment, before the music swelled and he spun her, wrapping his arms around her and keeping his chin on her shoulder, her back pressed close against his chest. The lines of her body pressed against his groin and his arms tightened. He looked passed her, eyed all the men that sent curious, but jealous, glances his way. Possessive heat pooled in his groin and the buzz of his head pushed him further and further into euphoria.

Not even as a boy had Petyr experienced bliss like this. Even with the burden of Cat’s death and the mess they had found themselves in, he was floating. He felt redeemed, the little, bleeding weakling that had sobbed on the lush Virginia banks had finally won. 

“You are so beautiful,” he growled against the sensitive skin of her neck. Petyrs’s eyes fluttered closed as he leaned his head into her and breathed her in. 

Sansa’s eyes fluttered closed with the heat of Baelish’s breath. Her head was light from the gin and the tension inside of her began to melt away, leaving a warm buzz in its wake. Soon she would be home, back in Chicago, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. But then what would happen to him? Her mother would surely disapprove of what had become of them during their time on the road. But surely she would be grateful that Petyr saved her life and brought her all the way back home? 

Something nibbled at the woman as she swayed with the music. Petyr’s arms around her and the warmth that leached from him threatened to cloud her mind, but she was sure not to forget the look of longing he had when they had been in the dressing room. There was something she didn’t know. Was she foolish in putting so much trust in him? Or was the trust born from sheer necessity? Crisis didn’t always cultivate the truest of relationships and perhaps Sansa was getting swept away with this shiny, exciting life that she had only listened to on the radio. Was this a game? 

No, there was something going on, that part she knew, but she thought back to the kiss as they stood in front of the mirror only moments ago. Sansa may be young, much younger than Petyr, but she trusted herself enough to recognize vulnerability when she was presented with it. And the slow, deliberate movements of his lips was more than just a lustful pass. 

She would wait, talk to him on the train in the morning as they both hurtled north. For now, Sansa decided she would try to memorize the feeling of his chest pressed against her back, his arms around her, and the sound of his deep humming in her ear. Gooseflesh spread across her skin with each press of his lips to her neck and for the first time all the decadence made sense. People craved what felt good. The lush parlors, the booze, the grass, the sex. The man holding her had built his empire on what felt indulgent to men, sometimes even to women. And as they swayed together and she pressed her behind against his hips and she knew he was hard in his pants. With a blush, she realized that Petyr was making her feel good as well. 

Sansa made up her mind that the moment they were alone, she would do her best to return the favor. 


	18. 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit content warning!  
> Hope you guys enjoy, truthfully this was the first time i've written out a scene like this and, honestly, its challenging.   
> Thank you guys so much!   
> -J

As one song flowed into another, Sansa realized she was being pushed closer and closer to a brink that she had never experienced before. Petyr’s palms were lazily traveling along her hips and his strong fingers gripped her flesh through the thin beaded dress. When she had brought her own hands up over his she felt him spread his fingers apart and skillfully let her lie between. Petyr held them, curling around her and, gaining confidence and finding the rhythm of the music, she moved against his hips. A small, quiet and pained groan escaped into her ear, so weak that she wouldn’t have heard it had he not been pressed so close.

Her eyes, half-lidded and far away, danced from couple to couple, noticing what they were doing on the dancefloor. Petyr and Sansa were tucked away towards the side wall of the room and she had a perfect vantage point. Women shamelessly touched their men, trailing their hands down their chest or brushing teasingly across their groins. Some of them shimmied low, gazing up at their partners with mischievous smiles before moving back up, pressing themselves even closer, chest to chest. Everyone was absorbed in each other and those who weren’t dancing were watching from the sidelines as they puffed on cigarettes and sipped their drinks. 

Emboldened, Sansa pulled away from his hands and reached behind, first blindly feeling the pant legs on his thighs before, cautiously reaching further and feeling the hardened shape of his manhood pressing against his zipper. 

“What exactly are you doing, Sweetling?” Petyr murmured in her ear and she could feel the sly smile on his lips as they barely pressed against her skin. Her dress was short and in response he reached at the hem and inched it up so his fingertips could dance across her thighs.

Truthfully, Sansa didn’t know. She didn’t know what she was doing. This was the world of adults, and indulgent ones at that. By the laws of age, she was no longer a child, years away from that, however after growing up sheltered in Chicago, she felt much younger. 

Sansa’s frayed nerves and ragged emotions were craving anything that would soothe them. The bar seemed like an oasis of milk and honey and she was slowly sinking beneath its surface while the world churned its misfortune outside. In here her father hadn’t been killed, her family weren’t miles away, her aunt wasn’t dead on her mountain, and the Lannister’s weren’t hunting them. In here, she was a beautiful and graceful flapper and men watched her. Sansa was wanted and a dangerous older man was coveting her, touching and teasing and whispering to electrify her skin. 

He had killed for her, and not just once. What did that mean? Was he evil? Would he kill her if she tried to get away? No. He wouldn’t. It was impossible to explain why she believed that so strongly. Petyr hadn’t pushed her and he hadn’t lied to her. Even when faced with the ability to lie back on the riverside when he had spied upon Sansa’s nakedness, he had told the truth. Sansa Stark had been the only person he hadn’t lied to, if his reputation was true.

Hands traveling up her sides pulled her from the mess of thoughts in her head, churning like a growing hurricane. As if reading her mind and knowing she was craving escape, Petyr’s palms followed the lines of her hips and waist, traveling upwards over the beaded dress. He skirted along her breasts, the thin fabric doing nothing to prevent her nipples from feeling his fingertips and she shuttered. One of his hands traveled back down to loop around her abdomen while the other grabbed her throat, softly but firmly turning her face to him. Warmth flooded her body, followed by the ice of Sansa’s own gooseflesh. 

Petyr claimed her mouth and he tasted like mint and juniper. No one cared, no one looked. They were just two people wrapped up in the music and the party, indulging just like everyone else. He was shorter than Sansa, and his chin was tilted upwards, but he still claimed her. Petyr was practiced, knew what felt good and what women liked. However he had never bothered to put forth all of his effort when he had his girls back in Atlantic City. Here, he felt as excited as he had been when he was young, but there was something new rippling through him, something invigorating. 

Confidence. 

Sansa hadn’t rejected him as her mother had. She was young, beautiful and full of life. And she was kissing him back. There was so much to show her, so much to teach her. Baelish would make her feel pleasure she had never experienced before because he was no boy. He had years to prepare for her, to practice for her body. 

Disappointment filled Petyr when she pulled away, her petal bottom lip lingering in his mouth for a moment. He saw that her pupils had dilated and her mouth hung slack, panting. The woman turned to face him fully, the arm around her abdomen slipping around her waist and his palm rested against the swell of her backside. His eyes traveled from her gaze down to her lips. Cocking his head ever so slightly, Petyr gave the smallest of smiles once he realized what she was. Sansa Stark was hungry. Hungry for him. 

“Come on,” he whispered to her, leaning forward and targeting her ear so that she could hear him fully. He grabbed her hand and headed to the double doors with the circle portholes. Petyr pulled Sansa through the kitchen, steam filling their lungs with heat as they darted through, unspotted. He sniffed out the back exit, where the cooks went to light up their smokes. 

The ally was long, cobblestoned with a dumpster at the very end. Petyr pulled her far away from it, up towards the glowing light poles of the street. Away from the alley, he found a secluded doorway built into the red brick of the train station. A maintenance door. A padlock was on the latch, no one would be going in or out anytime soon. They were hidden from view as it sat on the corner just before the ally, brick walls forming a sort of cutout in the rest of the building. 

The dark air held a refreshing chill from the speakeasy and they were hidden from view from anyone on the street. Smiling, Petyr pulled her to him, reaching up and cradling her face. “Come here, honey” he hummed before he claimed her mouth once more, kissing her more deeply than he had earlier. Her hands clutched at his vest and she met him with the same fervor. 

A small mewing escaped her and fire filled him. He had grown uncomfortable in his own trousers and his head was beginning to cloud. Nipping at her bottom lip, Petyr found himself leaning towards her, stepping until her back was pressed up against the brick. Sansa opened her lips to him and his tongue filled her mouth. The taste of the gin was nothing compared to her. He wondered how in the world this girl could be so delicious and so sweet. 

Sansa’s fingers were unbuttoning his vest and he chuckled against her lips, murmuring something about her being impatient. She wasn’t listening. Instead, she was pulling at his shirt until it came untucked from his trousers. Sansa leaned forward to kiss at his neck while her fingers found his skin, trailing back and scratching lightly at his back. She wanted him and she felt like opium filling his lungs with numbing smoke. 

Propping himself up with one palm against the brick and sliding his hand up the hem of her dress with the other, he realized he had been wrong. Petyr had thought he had the confidence and power from being older and wiser, but he realized it was Sansa that held the control over him. Her hungry little mouth and eager fingers and mews were driving him wild and the knowledge that it was he she wanted was enough to set him off. He needed to be sure to pay attention to her, to not get too wrapped up too soon. 

He felt the lace of her step-in and was delighted to find that it was a two piece. He felt the sharp intake of her breath against his Adam’s apple as he tentatively undid the little satin ribbon and slipped his hand inside. Petyr felt her soft patch of hair, giving it a teasing little rub between his index and thumb, before he traveled lower. Instinctively, Sansa leaned back against the brick, widening her legs. 

Petyr was drowning in the blue of her eyes when he slipped his finger inside of her. Her lips parted and her eyes fluttered closed and Baelish’s jaw clenched with his own hunger as he felt her wetness. He didn’t need to look, his fingers told him she was perfect. Soft, wanting, her little nub already starting to swell and when he swirled it deftly with his finger he could see her shudder in the dim light. 

“You’re excited, honey,” he said, pretending to be in control. He swirled it again as he leaned forward and kissed her once more, filling her mouth with his tongue as he pushed his finger inside of her further. Her breath hitched and Petyr growled into her. She was so tight, so warm. 

In the darkness behind her lids, Sansa was in bliss. Petyr’s hand was practiced, skilled, and was touching her with the perfect amount of pressure, teasing here and pressing there. When his finger pushed fully into her she thought she would whine, but his mouth had muted her as he kissed her deeply. She fumbled forward, trying to reach the buttons of his trousers, but he rubbed his thumb against her clit and stopped her in her tracks. She moaned. 

“I’m doing the touching,” Petyr growled, nipping against her neck. He thought of the two of them kissing in the truck. He had been craving to give her any sort of pleasure he could. She deserved it. 

Petyr suddenly dropped to his knees, uncaring if the cobblestones were dirty. Gazing up at Sansa, he pulled her hips to him and he felt her hands on his shoulders. Trailing his fingertips up her skirts, he could feel her tremble. 

“I’ve never done this,” she confessed in the dark. She was suddenly nervous, not knowing what to expect. She had heard rumors that sometimes men kissed women there, but she had thought that it was only a rumor. She had only freshened up in the washbasin in the dressing room and was suddenly self-conscious. No one had ever been that close to her body. 

Petyr held a finger up to his lips and he could smell her on his skin. It drove him wild and he reached up to pull down her underclothes. Without breaking her gaze, Petyr guided her hands upwards from his shoulders and made her hold up the dress for him, exposing herself. He looked away and saw her perfection standing in front of him. He cursed the dim light, but he could see her ivory skin glow like a beacon to a lost ship. 

“You’re perfect,” he breathed and she could feel his warm breath puff against her exposed skin. She trembled and watched with wide eyes as he leaned forward, kissing both of her thighs. Petyr’s lips seared her skin and he reached up with his hands, holding them where they met at her slit. He pulled at her skin with his thumbs and she felt the air on her unprotected parts. 

Petyr then leaned forward and planted a tentative kiss right at the top of her juncture, where her sensitive clit stayed protected by her skin. Yet another bolt of electricity shook her and she bit her lip as she gazed down at the top of Petyr’s head. He planted yet another kiss before he fully indulged and slipped his tongue through her folds to taste her. Moaning, she clutched at her skirt so tightly she felt the beads dig into her palms. Littlefinger hummed into her and swirled his tongue around her clit, sending twitches through her body. He kissed at her center the way he had kissed her lips, his mouth and tongue feasting upon her while his hands squeezed at her thighs. 

He consumed her as if she was the last meal of a starving man. The trembles and small little noises that escaped her drove him forward, embolding him while he took his time tasting her. He was slow, sensual, trying to savor every taste and every part of her. Then, when she was edging closer to something hot and building in her body, she found herself grabbing at his hair with a hand. She was submitting to him, letting him give her the only thing he had. Pleasure. 

Wrapping his lips around her swollen nub, he lashed at her lightly with his tongue and she stifled a scream. He wanted to hear her, hear her call out his name and mean it with no money or bribes behind it. The way no one else had. Reaching up, he slipped a finger inside of her and he ignored the pain of the cobblestones on his knees. His cock was aching in his pants, but he would ignore it as well. 

With his lashing tongue, Petyr could feel her getting closer to the edge. He knew she had never experienced anything like his mouth and it drove him forward, lapping and suckling. Her hand tightened in his hair and he felt her tense up. Petyr craved her release just as much as she had and he continued, his nose buried in her soft mound of hair. 

“You’re going to cum, honey,” he murmured up at her, getting a breath while is finger slowly moved in and out of her soaking pussy, unrushed. “I’m going to make you cum.” 

The low and growling timbre of Petyr’s voice sent chills down her spine and the words pushed her closer. She didn’t know what to expect but she had stopped caring, she just wanted to feel his mouth as long as she could. “Are you going to give me what I want?” he asked, pushing his finger ever deeper. He hooked it against the inner walls of her body and she sharply inhaled. When he returned to lapping at her she realized that the feeling began to grow, quickly and violently. 

“Petyr,” she sighed, the brick on the back of her head feeling like the softest of pillows, “Petyr something’s happening.” 

Littlefinger did not stop but he loved the sound of his name escaping her breathlessly. He kept at it, knowing that this was what was going to make the woman climax. She shook and he pushed his finger deep inside of her until he could feel her body spasming around his digit. Petyr gently and carefully licked at her clit, not too hard, to make sure that she would ride out her orgasm as long as possible. 

When she began twitching violently in the wake of her climax, he knew she had finished. He withdrew his finger and gave a soft kiss to her pubis before he stood. She was flushed, rosy cheeks and glazed eyes. Petyr leaned forward and kissed her and she welcomed it, ignoring her own wetness on his beard. He reached up with a sleeve and wiped at his face when they were finished. 

She was wondering what came next and he provided her an easy out. He didn’t want to fuck her in an ally, that would be saved for plush beds and feather pillows. Petyr would take his time. 

“Maybe we should go get some rest,” he hummed, very close to her. He reached back and undid one of the pins that held up her hair, pulling down the strand and wrapping it around his finger. 

Sansa stooped to pull up her step in. 

“Leave it off,” Petyr said, stepping back and holding out his hand. She looked at him, shocked, and then smiled, the excitement still very real within her. Sansa handed it to him and he tucked the thin fabric in his pocket. 

Taking her by the hand, Petyr brought her out to the street. They were guaranteed a room at The Ol’ Lady Rose’s hotel across from the station and Sansa found herself blushing as they moved through the street with her underclothes stuffed in Petyr’s pocket, the knowledge of what he had just done to her making her shiver more than the thought of her exposed skin beneath her dress. 


End file.
